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We live in the golden age of television. Streaming services such as Netflix have not only changed how we watch (including re-defining the meaning of "binge"), they’ve also slowly changed the kind of content viewers expect.
With serial production at an all-time high, services such as Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu and soon Disney+ are not just changing the television industry, they are also having an impact on storytelling in general. Now that new Netflix series have become the topic of dinner party conversations, break time banter, sometimes even work meeting chat, we expect a certain kind of storytelling not just from TV shows, but from brands as well.
In this article, I’m looking at some changes in storytelling in the “Netflix era.” What exactly is the Netflix effect, and how has it impacted brand communications, what does it mean for your brand story?
How Netflix Has Changed Storytelling: Larger Than Life Stories
I have watched many Netflix shows feeling that, under their narrative, they have unusual depth. Shows in the Netflix era tackle big, essential questions. Questions about love, sex, desire, loneliness, anger, and sometimes—as in the case of Orange is the new black—chickens. In their serial format, written to be binged, Netflix shows are able to go beyond a usual episode arc and show a larger-than-life world, a story that is too big for a traditionally contained 25-minute, 45-minute or even an hour-long TV show, and characters who are as well.
Netflix has perfected what Harvard professor, and architect of President Barack Obama’s field campaign, Marshall Ganz once defined as the “Story of Self, Us, Now.” In order to resonate, a story has to be integrated into a bigger context, an “Us.” It has to go beyond the story of an individual and become universal.
This might be why we consume stories in the first place. It has often been said that we use TV to escape life. In fact, entire generations have been accused of doing so! But often we are actually watching shows to understand life. We watch for stories we can see ourselves in. Other people’s stories are not just the story of an individual, they are practice for our own lives. When successful, a story becomes universal. It becomes our story. A story of "Us."
How Netflix Has Changed Storytelling: Everything Is Fair Game
Maybe the number one reason we have welcomed streaming services such as Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon so readily into our living rooms is that we can now enjoy stories that would previously never have made it to TV. But now they do, regularly.
An example of this, which seems like the current peak of character-driven TV storytelling, is Special, a deceptively traditionally formatted 20-minute comedy based on writer and actor Ryan O’Connell’s experiences as a gay man living life with Cerebral Palsy. We see Ryan as he sees himself. An awkward guy dealing with the difficulties of his life (a few of which are disability-related, but most of which are not), trying to be happy, and hoping to find love (and sex). I have a difficult time imagining a show like this pre-Netflix.
Netflix and other streaming services are finally showing underrepresented characters and stories. Think of Jill Soloway’s Transparent, a show that was rejected by major networks, but picked up by Amazon Prime, and which has been—despite a scandal around Jeffrey Tambor—groundbreaking for transgender visibility and rights. There is, of course, a long way to go, but Netflix and its ilk are bringing these conversations to people (maybe whole households) who wouldn’t otherwise be having them. And in showing characters of various genders and races, with various sexual preferences, disabilities, mental illnesses, political stances, in a fully-realized way they are finally allowing them to become part of an “us” story.
How Netflix Has Changed Storytelling: Characters Who Determine The Plot
More and more character-driven dramas and comedy-dramas have appeared in the past few years, taking over from traditional plot-driven TV fare. Orange is the New Black is a great example of a show that seemed like a “high-concept” show—the term writers use for a show that rests on a premise, with the story inherent within that premise. The easiest way to picture this is that a high-concept TV show begins with a clear “what if.” Orange is the New Black asks, “What if an upper-middle-class white woman went to prison for drug smuggling years after her crime.” But as the show develops, and as we immerse ourselves in the world of Litchfield Penitentiary through our binge-watching marathons, it becomes clear that the focus is not just on Piper but on many other characters and their lives both in and out of prison. The focus is on love, illness, freedom and its lack, crime, abuse, desire, class, money, education, loneliness, and connection.
In her book, Story Genius: How To Use Brain Science To Go Beyond Outlining And Write A Novel, Lisa Cron tells us: “Story is not about plot, or what happens. Story is about how the things that happen in the plot affect the protagonist, and how he or she changes internally as a result.”
In many of their shows, Netflix tends to put a lot of emphasis on exploring the inner life and the impact on characters of events in both major and minor storylines. The premise, which is often reasonably high concept, has become a starting point but beyond that time is devoted to delving into the rich inner lives of their characters.
How Netflix Has Changed Storytelling: Interactive Storytelling
Netflix is doubling down on interactive content, where they let the audience choose how the story should turn out. They already have a couple of shows using this system - most notably the “Bandersnatch” episode of Black Mirror, a high-tech choose-your-own-adventure in which the audience gets to decide what happens next.
For Netflix, that meant developing the ability to create “branching narratives” that encompassed all possibilities for a story. According to a recent TechCrunch article by Jonathan Shieber, the company designed a new internal writing tool, called “Branch Manager” and invested in a new technology that Netflix calls “state tracking” in order to save the choices viewers make.
I tried watching You vs Wild recently, and while I’m not the target audience, I can see the potential of this format not just for adventure shows, but also—as Netflix is planning—for rom-com and drama. The question is just: Is the ending that we think we want really the one that we actually want?
What Does All This Mean For Brand Communications?
Brand Communications Will Become More Focused On Characters
Netflix series are crafted around strong, larger-than-life characters, and brand campaigns are following suit. Nike's "Dream Crazy" campaign, for example, was crafted around Colin Kaepernick, who, in the wake of his activism and subsequent acrimonious departure from the NFL, provided encouragement for viewers to follow their dreams even if people called them crazy. He was the role model for all the stories that followed.
My guess is that in the future, we will see more “characters” in Brand Communications, who, like Kaepernick, have stories to tell. Celebrities have long cooperated with brands, but people like Kaepernick have real-life and political stories to tell that are both unique and universal. These characters, and not just celebrities or influencers, but also everyday heroes or role models, will become more important for brands and will tell their story. And a good brand story is, at the same time, our story too.
Creating Highly Emotional Experiences
Emotional storytelling, once reserved for fiction, has become part of brand communications. You might find yourself shedding a tear when watching a commercial for, let’s say, soy milk, and you are not alone.
Brands are investing in highly emotional content intended to make their audiences, well, cry. I wrote about this in an earlier Forbes post, and I still believe the most important skill for marketers these days is empathy. Evoking compassion, creating a connection and telling a story that resonates on an individual level, are some of the things that will get brands noticed.
One way that Netflix creates a rich emotional background in their shows is the time they have the time to go very deep into a character’s backstory. Maybe we will see the same trend in branding, following a story for a longer time and not just showing us a protagonist, but other characters as well. With options for a series of connected ads, and knowledge of what individual customers respond to as well as what they have already seen from a brand, the possibilities for online marketing are endless. Maybe customers will even be choosing their own adventure during ads in the near future!
Exploring Themes And Storylines That Used To Be Off-Limits
Complex characters and real-life situations have become the norm in brand storytelling. One example of this is the Burger King campaign "Feel Your Way." This campaign was made in cooperation with the non-profit Mental Health America. The ad doesn’t show people who are happily celebrating their birthdays at Burger King. Instead, it shows real people with real problems: abusive bosses, student loans, early parenthood. People who are upset, angry, depressed, lonely. These are real people living real lives, and Burger King fits into these lives. It is not a place to celebrate big achievements, and why would an ad pretend it was? But it can be a good moment in a bad day. And sometimes that is all we need.
Similar to the increasing inclusivity of TV in the era of Netflix, ads have begun to take a different approach to the stories they tell and the characters upon whom they shine a light. Many companies are trying to be more authentic and showing the sometimes-not-so-great-lives of their customers, which can, all the same, be improved by their product (even if just for a little while).
Even though I have explored how Netflix has changed storytelling and its effects on brand communication, I realize that this is not a one-way street. Netflix shows are not produced in a vacuum and are picking up bigger societal and political trends as well. Showing more diverse stories, for example, is not just a Netflix idea, but is rooted in the current moment. It’s time for us to see these stories.
And Netflix is also learning something from marketing. Their interactive format is basically taking a page of the book on customer engagement, which has been a topic for marketers for many years.
In any case, it seems we are in a new world of storytelling, whether that’s in the TV we binge or the stories our brands tell. We live in exciting times.
