1 Last Thing About Beef

Did you notice anything unique about Beef's design materials? The red used in the series branding is a near match to Netflix's signature brand red.

The campaign had the feels of early streaming, when marketing was as focused on driving intrigue in the content as it was intent on making a splash for the brand. In 2017, Netflix put fake lines of coke in bathrooms to promote Narcos, for example. As the streaming wars heated up, the challenge became how to justify these types of stunts with the need to pull in real viewership numbers. One could argue, if you want 7m+ viewers to stream an episode, you'll have a hard time garnering that sized audience through a stunt like putting fake cocaine in coastal bathrooms. Not surprisingly, with the launch of more platforms, we have seen less and less headline driving stunts and more tried and true approaches to building audiences through traditional media placement.

While Beef's story and characters made a splash, it's worth revisiting something most people overlooked in the campaign: Beef is a whole new example of how to simultaneously market a series and its platform brand. While Hulu's signature green has been helping consumers connect the dots between series promotion and platform for years, Beef's use of Netflix's signature red is unlike any creative through line we've seen in recent entertainment marketing. Also, this tactic was specific to a brand defining product, a series with a thought provoking POV and high creative bar, not a tactic being used without deeper intent across a wide range of Originals campaigns.

The hit's integration of Netflix's red not only helps to drive brand linkage between the show and the platform, but more importunately given the innovative nature of the show, that color integration also worked to subconsciously elevate how audiences around the world now think about the platform.