I recently discussed how entertainment has the power to help tackle the country’s loneliness epidemic head-on. While not a cure-all salve, movies, TV shows and music have the potential to help bring people together. Entertainment allows people to build connections — something that can at times feel fleeting.
In our world of connected entertainment, there are new ways to engage with one another from the comfort of our homes. Through texting with family and friends, to building community with strangers online. Even though most people still enjoy consuming entertainment at home, there is a resurgence of bringing people together in-person — and streaming services that have long profited off the “at-home” entertainment culture are looking to tap into the power of in-person, human connection.
Earlier this year, Netflix announced it would bring streaming to life with the launch of its Netflix Houses. The in-person experience venues will feature shopping and eateries in addition to experiential activities centered around its popular franchises and movies. This move aims to close the gap between streaming being a completely standalone at-home activity and something that can be enjoyed with friends and family in public.
Although it is a creative marketing tool for the streaming provider, it is leveraging an age-old tradition that we’ve seen time and time again. Netflix is taking a page out of a very popular film studio’s playbook — bridging on-screen entertainment with the real world.
Putting a fresh face on an age-old tradition
This tactic is one that we’ve seen for almost decades, looking at Walt Disney’s vision of Disneyland in the mid-1900s. Giving families the opportunity to meet the characters they love on-screen in the flesh. Although Netflix likely won’t bring the Demogorgons from “Stranger Things’” The Upside Down to people across America, this play could signal a new era of streamers and show creators looking for ways to extend a storyline into the real world and bring community together even more.
Working to build community when it comes to consuming entertainment is extremely important, especially when we look at our youngest generations. In a recent Xperi survey, we found that a majority of Gen Z (55%) and millennials (52%) feel a sense of community and belonging when participating in entertainment activities, which is more than any other generation. If companies tap into this desire for a sense of belonging when creating in-person entertainment experiences, they’ll find greater success in building community around the content they’re developing in both the long and short term.
By creating physical representations of shows and movies, through the likes of Netflix Houses or Disneyland theme parks, studios and streamers are creating a more permanent experience to solidify these entertainment moments as being critical to the fabric of people’s lives. It shows viewers that their favorite show or movie isn’t just for them — there are others who enjoy it, are looking to share an experience or just want to share in the nostalgia, and they can come together in the physical world to do so.
There is a long history of bringing people together through these physical spaces of entertainment, and this is just the next fresh evolution of that. As we look toward what’s to come in the next year, these types of activations and places that blend digital entertainment and in-person experiences will likely become more relevant and critical to building community. They aren’t just a marketing ploy — blending them together could be a central part of our connected entertainment ecosystem.
Read our latest report on how to create better entertainment experiences for consumers here.
