Collaborating with Netflix on a personal message from Ferry to the user directly.
Contributions
Design Lead
Pitching
Digital Design
Interactive Prototyping
Client Management
Creative Strategy & Direction
Objective
Movie launch
Campaign
Role:
Lead / Senior Designer
Team
Sander H., Sales Director
April., Digital Designer
Nathan H., Senior Designer
Giulian D., Senior Developer
Vertical
Media & Entertainment
Market
Benelux (NL-BE)
Year
2021
My role
As the Lead designer I was working with a small team of 3 designers and 2 developers. My main responsibilities included designing ideas & prototypes, reviewing designs from peers, managing stakeholders from Sales, Ad-tech, and Engineering, as well as directly coordinating with Netflix. I pitched and presented concepts, conducted feedback rounds, led design reviews and streamlined design iterations to ensure a smooth and efficient design process.
Context & Brief
Due to the new launch of the movie Ferry for the Benelux market, Netflix approached us to help with a campaign that would create awareness for the launch. We aimed to create concepts that would “wow” our audience by providing them with interactive experiences as well as giving them the option to play the trailer.
Challenge
Create a bold concept and interactive campaign for a movie launch that aligns with Netflix marketing.
Objective
Our main objective was making users curious about the trailer, so we offered a unique experience that creates both awareness and enthusiasm for the movie, but also guides them towards watching the trailer. We came up with the idea of a personal voice memo and asked Netflix to provide it to us from the one and only Frank Lammers himself.
Outcome
+3M
of total impressions
+125
increase in-view time
(2x higher than universal benchmark)
CTR of +1%
(5x higher than universal benchmark)
Idea & Solution
A personal message from ferry directly to the user.
We focused on creating key deliverables to improve collaboration and increase efficiency between designers, developers, sales and clients through standardisation of low tier formats and best practices guidelines so we can keep more time available for upper tier and custom formats.
The process began with a kick-off meeting with the client to define KPIs and campaign goals, such as Brand Awareness, VCR, and CTR. During the ideation phase, we used techniques like mind maps, the Lotus flower technique, and mood boards for research. Visual ideation involved creating sketches in Figma, setting the art direction, and developing a component library. We presented two rounds of ideas to the client, incorporating feedback and iterations. Finally, we completed the developer hand-off, including QA, before launching the campaign.
Timeline
Aligning with Netflix’s way of thinking.
What would be the most logical place to promote the movie Ferry? Thats right, they put the Ferry aka Frank Lammers face on a life-size Ferry boat. This is a great example of what Netflix is about. They are known for their “meta” marketing approach. As you can imagine this really set the bar high. It was the challenge to align that thinking and come up with something equally special.
Would you risk it all for love?
We sat down to diverge and explore various directions that we could pitch, we explored the idea of adding gamification and storytelling as a way to really engage viewers and get them acquainted with the movie and Ferry’s characters.
Ideation & Visual Direction
Tasked with developing the visual style and selecting the typography for the project. Inspired by the gritty, dramatic tones of movies like Pulp Fiction and Peaky Blinders, I aimed to create a compelling and fitting tone of voice for Ferry. Drawing from these influences, I chose a thick, bold typeface similar to the Kubrick font to convey strength and impact. This choice helped set the right mood and complemented the overall aesthetic, aligning perfectly with the project's vision.
A personal voice memo from Ferry to you.
After putting all that emphasis on all characters we realised that Ferry is the one it all came down to. He is the real star of the movie, and it was right under our nose the whole time. We realised less is more in this case. We stripped everything and the one character that remained was Ferry.
We decided to be cheeky and asked Netflix if Frank Lammers, the actor, was willing to provide us with a voice memo speaking to the WeTransfer audience directly.
Final iterations
I crafted the UX flow and developed the experience to make it ready for launch. For the developers I designed the components and build a flow for two different scenarios. One where the user was active and one where the user stayed idle. Eventually a notification would appear that would prompt the user to click and see what happens.
Final design
I crafted the UX flow and developed the experience to make it ready for launch. For the developers I designed the components and build a flow for two different scenarios. One where the user was active and one where the user stayed idle. Eventually a notification would appear that would prompt the user to click and see what happens.
Performance
The overall wallpaper performance was excellent in terms of viewability, in-view time, interaction, and engagement boosting more than +3M impressions and a CTR of 1% (5x higher than average benchmark). Netflix and WeTransfer’s audience loved the creative strategy. Many people listened to ferry from their computers. While the voice memo was the main attraction, the trailer was also watched many times.
Social impact
The campaign was shared many times by WeTransfer users within the benelux market with much enthusiasm. Netflix loved the creative strategy. Users thought Netflix was behind it instead of WeTransfer which means it fits their brand really well.
