The all-seeing Netflix

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In other news… Disney gets the band back together, data drives everything at Netflix, and sonic identities replace corporate jingles.

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The Future. Disney is potentially bringing back former C-suite execs Kevin Mayer and Tom Staggs to help figure out the company’s next steps for its linear TV channels — assets that CEO Bob Iger recently revealed could be up for sale. While that’s significant in and of itself, it’s even more interesting when considering Iger’s mandate to name a successor. But with Mayer and Staggs still in the beginning stages of creating their own empire with Candle Media, it’s possible Disney may need to acquire that company to trap the mice permanently.

Big cheeses
Disney is getting some fresh help from some old friends.

Staggs (who was Disney’s former COO, CFO, and head of parks) and Mayer (who spearheaded the creation of Disney+) were both at one point the heir apparent to Iger’s throne before getting snubbed (Staggs for another Iger contract re-up and Mayer for Bob Chapek). With Iger’s main priority being finding a successor (again), both men are potentially in pole position for another shot at the Mickey-eared crown.

But both Disney alums still co-run the Blackstone-backed Candle Media, which has been on an M&A tear over the past two years as they build a company that wants to be at the intersection of “content, community, and commerce.”

Come to think of it, that sounds a bit like Disney…

The Future. Netflix’s underlying technology is a huge part of what has made the company so successful, with the platform able to pinpoint everything — viewership, taste, viewing habits — from every one of its users. And Netflix can’t hide that anymore, which is why the streamer has become the poster child of the writer’s and actor’s war for proper compensation in the streaming age. And with AI soon to become a part of the company’s operations in a much larger way, the data collected today may soon seem basic.

You’re always watching
Netflix’s head of content, Bela Bajaria, says, “Algorithms don’t decide what we make.” Maybe so… but they seem to decide what the company keeps making.

All of that to say — when Netflix proclaims it can’t figure out a viewership-based metric for residuals (a big sticking point for striking writers and actors), that may be hard to justify. Data is leverage… and in an industry where leverage is the foundation of a good deal, it’s everything.

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The Future. Replacing last century’s full-song jingle is the handful-of-notes sonic signature — a distinctive, catchy tune that creates subconscious brand recognition. Our days are filled with these sounds, so every organization wants one that rises above the white noise. But with signatures being so brief, we may realize decades from now few have the same staying power of the blunt instrument that was the classic jingle.

Jingle no more
WaPo’s Michael Andor Brodeur breaks down the rise of brand earworms.

Crafting these signatures is part art, part science. When the Mellon Foundation (a nonprofit) was developing theirs, they used a handful of notes from 20th-century composer Florence Price.

Vanessa Corrêa, Mellon’s chief communications officer, said they tested several options and found the final product’s “cadence of the melody, the way it ends on an up note [were] very deliberate choices to feel optimistic and forward-looking.”

In other words, the bop needs to communicate the entire vibe of the brand.

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Today’s email was written by David Vendrell.
Edited by Nick Comney. Copy edited by Kait Cunniff.
Published by Darline Salazar.