The Upfront presentation, that annual rite of the American television business in which networks gather media buyers in theaters and hotel ballrooms to preview their fall schedules and accept their advertising commitments, has crossed the Atlantic.
Netflix, the streaming service that spent much of its early life insisting it would never accept advertising at all, staged its first Upfront in the United Kingdom this week, an event that would have seemed improbable even three years ago. Amy Reinhard, the company's president of advertising, flew from Los Angeles to preside over the occasion in King's Cross.
"We said we were never going to be in ads, and now we're in ads," Ms. Reinhard said, acknowledging the reversal with the kind of directness that comes from having watched the company's position evolve through what she describes as "four different iterations" since she joined in 2016. (The co-founder Reed Hastings was rather more emphatic on the subject in 2015: "No advertising coming on to Netflix. Period.")
The company says its ad-supported tier now reaches more than 14 million viewers in Britain, a figure it attributes to the audience measurement company Barb. It also announced plans to expand the ad tier into nine additional European markets, including Ireland, the Netherlands and Sweden, beginning in March 2027.
Ms. Reinhard's ambitions extend beyond simply capturing the television budgets that have been migrating to streaming for years. She wants a place lower in the marketing funnel as well — the realm of conversions and consideration that has traditionally belonged to digital platforms rather than to anything resembling television.
"The assumption is for sure that we are more of a top-of-funnel play, similar to linear TV," she said. "And yes, that is true to some extent."
To some extent. The phrase does a fair amount of work.
Netflix introduced several new advertising capabilities at the event, including pause ads available programmatically through partner demand-side platforms and expanded demographic targeting. The company also presented research from System1, the effectiveness measurement firm, suggesting that its brand partnerships perform well on both brand-building and short-term sales metrics.
Whether media buyers will come to see Netflix as something other than a premium television buy remains to be seen. But Ms. Reinhard, who has watched the company abandon more than one firmly stated position, seems comfortable with the long game.
Original story published in The Drum: "Netflix ad boss Amy Reinhard: ‘We’ve got a right to win’ across the media plan | The Drum"