One of my favorite freelance gigs this past Summer was working with Gretel to develop a global tagline for Netflix. Established in 1997, Netflix has defied all doubters and become the planet’s leading streaming media service, serving over 65 million users and infiltrating the nightmares of cable network executives around the world. Gretel has been working closely with them throughout 2015, helping to shape the brand and design an incredibly flexible and functional identity system that ripples out into almost every permutation, both internally and externally.

 

The final piece of the puzzle was something completely new for Netflix: a global tagline. They had never had one, nor were they sure they even wanted one, but expanding into so many new global markets created the need for the brand to present a unified front to the world. They needed a single tagline that could easily translate into any language and say as much as possible about who they are and what they offer in as few words as possible.

 

We worked together as team for weeks, throwing hundreds of taglines up against the wall to see what would stick. When the pitch day arrived, we presented a handful of solutions. Each had their own merit, but it was evident very quickly that “See What’s Next” was the clear favorite.

 

Epilogue: This tagline was never used in the United States. Just Europe and Asia, and only for about 2 or 3 years – until they felt that they were now enough of a global household name that they were free to return to a tag free brand.

 

 

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