Netflix’s Newest Ad Campaign Highlights Family Movie Nights

With the new year coming up fast, Netflix has put out a new ad campaign to garner interest in its monthly subscription service. However, the focus of the ads isn’t placed on Netflix’s features or offerings, but rather on one of the most traditional events in American households: family movie night.

Netflix put out a series of ads for the “Watch Together” campaign featuring different families. The streaming service worked with Los Angeles-based R/GA agency and directors The Mercadantes to create the completely unscripted, unstaged spots by filming family movie nights inside real people’s homes. There’s a heavy focus on children in particular, who always seem to approach movies with a sense of wonder no matter how long it takes a family to decide on a film to watch together.

Netflix decided to stay away from directly promoting its titles (though some are mentioned in a few of the spots, like Forrest Gump and Batman). Instead, the streaming service wanted to focus on how families perceive movie watching and what it does to strengthen families. The results (or maybe just the kids) are adorable. “Movies are long shows” states one particularly apt little girl, while a young boy says movies could have “superheros, bad guys, romanticness, or other things.” One girl even clarifies there are steps to getting movie night right, starting with making popcorn and then discussing the film after it’s done.

With more and more adults streaming TV shows and movies every week, it’s little surprise Netflix is encouraging adults to spend some of that time enjoying select titles with their families. You can watch all of the 30-second to 2-minute-long ads on Netflix’s YouTube channel.