Netflix’s global ad president Jeremi Gorman is departing just just a little over a 12 months after joining the entertainment company. The executive was poached from Snap together with Peter Naylor in August 2022 to get the streamer’s ad-supported tier off the bottom.
Gorman can be replaced by Amy Reinhard, who previously served as vice president of Netflix’s studio operations. Naylor is staying on as Netflix’s vice president of global ad sales, per Ad Age. Netflix this week also promoted Elizabeth Stone to chief technology officer and Eunice Kim to chief product officer, Variety reported.
“My passion is scaling businesses from the early stages, which I actually have done persistently — none more exciting than at Netflix. We’ve built a world-class team and laid the foundations needed to create a ceaselessly ads business,” said Gorman in a press release shared by Netflix.
“The stories at Netflix are second-to-none, and types are desirous to be a component of that zeitgeist. Working alongside Amy on the leadership team for the past 12 months, I’ve seen her operational excellence and entertainment expertise firsthand, which is able to help enable brands to learn from ‘The Netflix Effect’ in latest and noteworthy ways,” added Gorman.
Netflix’s ad-supported plan, which launched within the U.S. in November and costs $6.99 a month, represents uncharted territory for a platform that long balked at the thought of commercials. Netflix has been working with Microsoft on constructing out its ad sales and ad-tech operations. The tech giant was a dark horse pick for handling those duties and the connection has reportedly not been without its bumps within the road. Netflix has also enlisted other third parties to round out the division, including ad verification and measurement partners Integral Ad Science and DoubleVerify.
Netflix brass has often reiterated the corporate is taking a “crawl, walk, run” approach to standing up an ad segment, with progress still within the “crawl” stage. Revenue grew nearly 3% to $8.2 billion within the second quarter, but promoting was not yet “material” to the underside line. Executives have previously indicated that they expect promoting will eventually drive no less than 10% of total revenue.
Netflix’s promoting formats are fairly barebones and the platform is just pushing a limited amount of commercials to avoid frustrating viewers who’re accustomed to an interruption-free experience. Marketers including NYX Professional Makeup, L’Oreal Paris, AB InBev, Subway and Google have run campaigns on the service.
Netflix at its first upfronts presentation within the spring said that its ad-supported tier attracted about 5 million subscribers throughout the first six months of its rollout. The streamer is now mulling raising the worth of its ad-free plan once the SAG-AFTRA strike is resolved, based on The Wall Street Journal, a move which may push more consumers toward its cheaper ad-supported tier.
Netflix isn’t alone in ramping up its overtures to (*13*) Avenue. Amazon in September announced it could start playing a limited variety of commercials around TV and films on Prime Video, a major expansion of its monetization efforts for the streamer. Max and Disney+ have also made ad-supported options an even bigger priority because the streaming category at large begins to focus more on profitability over raw subscriber growth.
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