Case Study: How Netflix’s Stranger Things 4 reached a larger Gen Z audience through StreamO’s innovative approach with YouTube Live Streaming

Netflix's Stranger Things 4 partnering with StreamO reached a larger set of audience with the help of over 5000 YouTube live streamers.

This Case Study takes a look at how Netflix Stranger Things 4 leveraged more than 5000 YouTube live streamers and reached the Gen-Z crowd in association with StreamO.

Category Introduction

In 2020, YouTube Gaming recorded 100 billion hours of watch time, with YouTube Live tripling its daily live watch time between January 2020 and December 2021. During this time, India saw a 56 percent rise in live-streaming video consumption, with gaming accounting for the lion's share. Since then, OTTs like Amazon Prime, MX Player, and Netflix, among others, have collaborated with StreamO to access hard-to-reach gen-z audiences through game creators who operate as entertainers (half athlete-half influencer) on YouTube Live. Furthermore, gaming creators are the most followed influencer type among Gen Z, influencing what younger customers wear, watch, listen to, and so on. According to a recent OMG analysis titled 'Marketing to Millennials & Gen Z,' 97 percent of Gen Z follow creators while only 13 percent follow conventional celebrities. As a result, creators are an effective channel for reaching gen-z audiences.

For the uninitiated

Video gaming is no longer restricted to simply playing video games. Gen Z spends more time watching video games than playing them. This includes video game streaming, which pulls from reality TV, movies, and podcasting but is its own medium: participatory, unscripted, and chaotic. It puts creators in front of their followers, forging an unrivaled link between creators and communities like Bollywood or Cricket. YouTube is the new movie theatre for many in Generation Z, although their idols aren't Shah Rukh Khan or Virat Kohli, but rather teens and 20-somethings in their homes eating on Lays while live-streaming themselves playing PUBG or Minecraft.

Brand Introduction

StreamO is a live-stream sponsorship marketplace that helps brands access the hard-to-reach Gen Z audiences by consummating matches between brands and creators who ply their trade as entertainers (half athlete-half influencer) on YouTube Live, Facebook Live, and Twitch. StreamO democratizes the world of live-streaming by empowering creators to own their content, build strong communities, and work with brands.

Problem Statement/Objective

Netflix aimed at targeting the GenZ audience via an innovative yet scalable approach to announce the release of their blockbuster series Stranger Things 4.

Also Read: Case Study: How Bridgestone India’s Father’s Day campaign took the storytelling route… 

Creative Idea 

Introduce brand messaging for the release of ST4 in live streams of independent YouTubers on Live with a corresponding call to action in the chatbox.  The brand messaging was in rich media video format that is unskippable, unblockable, and unstoppable in the form of an overlay in the streams of thousands of YouTube live streamers over a period of 13 days to promote the launch of ST4, creating hyper-viewability across YouTube.

Challenges

Since this was a marquee release, StreamO mobilized the entire community of game creators across the length and breadth of India to actively promote the ST4 launch not only on their YouTube Live streams but also across their social media on Instagram and Discord. 

Execution

StreamO team mobilized the gaming live streaming community to be part of the campaign

• More than 5000 creators were mobilized, and their cumulative reach of 100 million subs.
• >1000 live streamers actively participated/ showed the ST4 promo video
• 1M cumulative impressions and counting through Instagram posts about the campaign
• >100 content creators’ promoting the launch of Stranger Things 4 through creative Instagram reels.
• Unprecedented demand to participate in the campaign meant that we crossed our daily threshold of impressions every day

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Results

• 100% of 1.25 million 15-second picture-in-picture ST4 announcement trailers and 2,40,000 15-second full-screen video trailers delivered on live streams with a corresponding CTA in the chatbox to real human audiences over a 13-day period.
• More than 5000 streamers mobilized, with over 1000 streamers showing campaign ads in their live streams + social media