House of Ads: The Advertising Strategy Behind Netflix's Top Show

What episode are you on? If you're like the 3M+ Americans (including myself - episode 10 here) glued to the drama happening with the Underwood administration, then these ads are for you. Here at our office, we're still under a strict no-spoilers policy, however, Heather Dunbar and Frank Underwood are often mistakenly injected into conversations about the "actual" Presidential election.

 

My first experience with a House of Cards creative came the night before the new season premiered, while visiting washingtonpost.com (see screenshot below). First, I was blown away by the boldness of the Netflix show’s new ad. Kevin Spacey appears as Frank Underwood, in his best political headshot, juxtaposed next to a photo of Donald Trump in a similar style suit, speaking to the creators' intentional parallel to the current, real life political candidates. After digging further into the digital strategy that House of Cards Season 4 was employing, the results were almost as interesting as the Underwood campaign itself.

The Netflix darling started running display ads on February 26th, a week prior to the premiere of Season 4. It wasn’t until the day of the premiere, March 4th, that the show ramped up their efforts dramatically across channels, releasing 43 of the 49 desktop creatives in the opening weekend alone (3/4-3/6). Topping desktop impressions during this onslaught was March 6th, as Team Underwood hit 182 sites, spending $90K+.

While they did run mobile and video ads, it was a much smaller volume compared to their desktop strategy.

 

How are they buying?