• by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, November 15, 2021

Does Netflix want me to do some extra promotional bidding for its TV and movie content -- beyond my usual unstructured interactions?

Netflix subscribers may, of course, be doing lots of obvious stuff -- talking up their favorite “You” or “Squid Game” episode on social media, perhaps riffing on a possible review uploaded on YouTube.

Netflix is the dominant U.S. streaming player. Maybe it doesn’t need more consumer promotion. But competitors, such as Amazon Prime Video, are looking for added visibility.

Now, on the Amazon Prime Video app, Apple iPhone users can choose a 30-second portion of an original series and share it with friends, family members and hangers-on.

For Amazon, all this goes hand in hand with how it uses good and bad reviews of shoes, handsaws, iPhone covers and grana parmesan cheese, on Amazon's main ecommerce platform.

It occurs as streaming reaches new saturation points. Netflx already sees this in the U.S. While it gains internationally, it still needs to keep all existing customers happy. Guessing if Netflix or Amazon really want added marketing push, they could do lots more straight-ahead advertising.

For any streaming services, this would successfully reveal itself in higher consumption of users time per week/per month.

Likewise, Amazon wants similar activity. Higher usage everywhere on its site. Is it willing to pay for people's marketing services? Not directly. For ecommerce reviews, there are promotional incentives, typically tied to more spending by users.

Fair enough. If my two cents -- or sentences -- may amount to say a 20% reduction on the high-end gravel bike I’m eyeing, I’m in. Helmet not included.

Perhaps now I can see all the efforts NBCUniversal has been doing around commerce, its Shoppable TV stuff -- giving viewers the opportunity to purchase products within the environment of their favorite TV show. In the long run, one wonders what other incentives might exist for regular NBCU TV viewers.

Netflix can’t replicate many of these ecommerce consumer efforts. But it can offer a free month, so I don’t have to pay the monthly $13.99 subscription.

Right now, emails from Netflix ask me to finish viewing specific TV series -- as if I forgot to take my daily probiotic or multivitamin.

I want to be a good promotional video consumer. I’ll take my daily TV-video medicine.