The Clever Psychology Behind "Netflix and Chill"

"Netflix and Chill" is one of the most popular sexual euphemisms in the Western world. On the surface, it's an invitation to come over, watch a film on Netflix together and "unwind" a little. In reality, it's an invitation to flop down on the sofa side by side, put on a film to set the mood, and then…… well, you know.

Whether the phrase arose by accident or as a piece of Netflix marketing strategy, who knows. If it's the latter, all you can say is that they did it far too well — hats off to you! This piece of marketing has at least two clever things going on.

Take the more surface-level layer first. Psychology tells us that people have a tendency to feel more warmly towards something the more they're exposed to it — it's called the Mere Exposure Effect. One effective marketing method, then, is simply to keep putting your message in front of the customer. Traditional marketing achieves this through sheer repeated exposure: paying to run adverts non-stop. The better-run companies have a complete Sales Funnel — a system of email subscriptions, re-marketing adverts and push notifications that keeps a potential customer seeing their message again and again. But Netflix wrapped its brand inside a popular catchphrase, and got its name spread across the world without spending a single cent.

Now the more impressive layer: Netflix shed the loser image of someone holed up at home watching films alone, and cleverly tied its brand to sexual appeal. Before Netflix came along, the public's picture of watching streaming video at home was mostly a single guy stuck indoors with no date, killing time downloading pirated clips — while a date meant a trip to the cinema. After Netflix and Chill appeared, the whole game changed: now watching Netflix together became an even more intimate move than catching a film at the cinema. Because sex is something almost everyone cares about and enjoys, that one association alone was enough to shift how the public felt about Netflix, turning what had been a "loser" thing into a positive one. From sex, the Netflix brand naturally borrowed elements like passion, excitement, youth and energy — and that let it aim squarely at the young-adult market.

In fact, mindfulness (Mindfulness) needs a similar kind of marketing strategy. Mention mindfulness and a lot of people's first reaction is to think of treating depression or something — that it's only "loser" types who need to practise mindfulness — which does nothing to help promote mindfulness to the wider public. Because the public will only imitate what's attractive, what's "cool". So I actually don't think "treatment" should be the keynote for promoting mindfulness. The only pity is that, lacking talent, I can't dream up a line as sharp as Netflix and Chill — only something as crude and lowbrow as Meditate and Fxxk. With taste that vulgar, I doubt anyone would accept the invitation.

Promoting mindfulness, then, is down to all you creative minds out there. Got a good slogan?