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In 2007, Netflix was almost written off. Today, it's worth over $250 billion. What changed? Not just tech. Not luck. But obsession with understanding people.
In 2024, Netflix added 41 million new users. That’s a 16% surge on a base of over 260 million. And they closed the year with a staggering $34 billion in revenue.
But here’s the real story: Netflix didn’t grow by chance. They grew by listening.
While other companies were guessing what people wanted (like Blockbuster), Netflix was watching what people actually did. They built one of the most valuable entertainment empires in the world not just through content, but through consumer obsession.
The lesson is that insight isn’t a nice-to-have, it’s the entire playbook.
But how exactly did they do this? From being deemed an early “failure” when they started in 2007 to a multi-billion dollar business.
Simply the answer is insights - how they used them and got here is the real question which we will dive into further.
This blog has:
Netflix wasn’t always a $250B tech giant.
In the early 2000s, they were just a scrappy DVD rental service shipping discs by mail and competing head-to-head with Blockbuster.
But here’s what made them different: they paid attention.
As broadband internet grew and attention spans shrank, Netflix noticed something the rest of the industry ignored: people didn’t want to wait for entertainment, they wanted to stream them.
While competitors doubled down on retail stores and late fees, Netflix made a bet: that consumer behavior, not corporate tradition would shape the future.
That bet? Streaming.
And it changed everything.
They launched with just 1,000 titles. But the real inflection point didn’t come from what they offered, it came from how they used insights to shape it.
Netflix, we also might know this as the company that ran the beloved blockbuster to the ground. But, they weren't the villain, they just did it better and stronger, resonating more with what the audience needed
Initially they were direct competition to Blockbuster. They had the same model; renting physical CD’s to users and expecting to grow. They noticed that this wasn’t working, they simply couldn’t compare to the much bigger competitors so they tried something different.
They noticed that the big technology uproar was coming so they decided to take a chance and establish one of the biggest industries: Streaming.
Initially they only had a catalog of about 1000 movies on their platform and started to grow but they didn't see the exponential growth until they used insights.
One of the smartest things that Netflix did was start to produce their hit original shows.
With most of them being now the most streamed shows. Their originals range from shows like SQUID GAME to Wednesday, and perhaps their most popular hit- Stranger things which its newest season garnered over 140 Million watches and has been streamed for over 1.8 billion hours
Did you know this Genius idea came to them through using insights?
Their first major bet? House of Cards. But it wasn’t greenlit by a Hollywood exec on a hunch. It was built using behavioral insight.
Before producing a single scene, Netflix analyzed what their audience actually loved. They noticed a key overlap:
Add in rewatch data, binge-watching habits, drop-off points, and even search history and suddenly, a clear picture emerged:
Audiences didn’t just want political drama. They wanted this political drama.
Then came the kicker: personalized packaging.
Netflix A/B tested promotional thumbnails showing Kevin Spacey to some, Robin Wright to others, and different imagery depending on what you usually clicked. That level of insight turned a niche concept into a cultural juggernaut.
While other studios relied on gut feelings, Netflix let the audience write the pitch without even knowing it.
House of Cards wasn’t a fluke. It was the blueprint.
After seeing the success of their first data-backed original, Netflix doubled down. And it worked.
Their biggest hits, Stranger Things, Squid Game, Wednesday, YOU weren’t just good shows. They were shows engineered to resonate. Netflix tracked emotional beats, genre preferences, and social buzz to greenlight ideas that felt both timely and timeless.
In fact, Stranger Things: Season 4 was streamed for over 1.8 billion hours. That’s not just engagement. That’s emotional alignment at scale.
Meanwhile, competitors were burning cash without clarity:
What did they have in common?
No audience insight. No emotional pulse check. Just a “we think this will work” mentality.
Netflix didn’t just listen to the market they built a machine that never stopped listening. That’s the difference.
Here’s the wild part:
Even in 2025, most brands still rely on research methods that are slow, sanitized, or straight-up out of touch.
Meanwhile, your audience is pouring their hearts out online on Reddit threads, TikTok comments, niche forums, and product reviews.
But no one’s reading them.
That’s the real gap: the emotional internet vs. emotionless research.
Netflix figured this out early. And they won.
Most brands haven’t. And they’re falling behind, fast.
You don’t need Netflix’s budget to use their strategy.
You just need their mindset.
Here’s how to start building insight-driven content that actually lands:
Go beyond surface-level dashboards. Look at unfiltered conversations—what people complain about, what they rewatch, what they feel.
What themes get people fired up? What makes them feel seen? That's where your messaging should live.
Netflix didn’t ask users what they wanted. They watched what they did. Do the same with your audience: analyze reactions, repeat behavior, and drop-offs.
A/B test visuals, headlines, even creative angles just like Netflix did with thumbnails. Insight isn’t just for strategy decks. It should shape execution too.
The best part? You don’t need a 20-person research team to do this anymore.
Tools like OneCliq help brands tap into real conversations, extract emotional insights, and generate strategic creative direction, in minutes, not months.
Netflix didn’t get lucky.
They got obsessed with what people love, fear, crave, and binge.
That obsession turned into insights.
Those insights turned into strategy.
That strategy? A $250B empire.
Most brands still launch campaigns hoping they’ll land.
Netflix launches with evidence that they will.
If you want to win in today’s attention economy, guessing isn’t good enough.
You need to know your audience, deeper, faster, and more emotionally than ever before.
The good news? You don’t need to become Netflix.
You just need to start thinking like them.
Start with real conversations. Find the emotional signal. Build from there.
Tools like OneCliq make it easy.
The insight era has arrived. Are you listening?
Written by Tulika Bhardwaj
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The first platform built to automate qualitative research and make it actually useful.
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