
Netflix takes advantage of Snap’s crisis to sign the executive to lead its ad-supported mode
Jeremi Gorman, until now head of Snap’s advertising business, will be in charge of developing Netflix’s advertising business. She is also taking with her Peter Naylor, who reported to her as vice-president of commercial sales in the Americas. Both departures come in the context of a severe restructuring of the company that operates Snapchat following poor results in the second quarter due to the downturn in the advertising market and the continued impact of iOS privacy restrictions. Twenty per cent of the company’s 6,400 employees will lose their jobs in the coming days, according to local media reports.
Gorman’s position at Netflix, which has also executed several rounds of layoffs in recent months due to the worsening economic outlook, will be president of worldwide advertising. And Naylor will take on the role of vice-president to lead the team that will be dedicated to selling ad space. The challenge for both is to build from scratch a business that until very recently the streaming giant’s founding CEO had no intention of incorporating at all.
The new president of Publicidad Mundial will have to build from scratch an advertising business that will start at the beginning of next year.
This incorporation resolves a selection process that has been going on for months. Executives from companies such as Comcast, which aspired to be Netflix’s technological and commercial partner until the platform decided to go with Microsoft, have been in the running.
Not too many details have emerged about what this ad-supported version of Netflix will look like, which is tentatively scheduled to launch in early 2023. Bloomberg has reported that internal plans include no ads for children’s programming and premieres of in-house productions, and that users will not be able to download content for offline viewing. Another of the key issues still to be clarified is the price at which it will begin to compete in the US, which could be between 7 and 9 dollars a month.
If the rate is confirmed in that range, Netflix would be in line with what Disney has recently announced for the spot version of its main platform, $7.99 a month. And both would be slightly cheaper than HBO Max, which charges US$9.99. All three are in line with the new ad density standard for streaming of around four minutes.