“Stay at home”—that’s the message that everyone, from our governments to our friends and families, has been pounding into our heads since the start of the coronavirus pandemic. It’s fine if you have to go shopping for groceries to last you an entire week, but some people don’t want to change their lives and they go outside for fun.
To encourage all of us to stay at home, students from the Miami Ad School branch in Europe created a campaign where Netflix billboards show spoilers for the most popular shows. Their main idea is to show that spoilers might prevent people from going out when they don’t need to, even if nothing else will.
Two students from the Miami Ad School Europe in Germany came up with the fake Netflix campaign: art director Seine Kongruangkit and copywriter Matithorn Prachuabmoh Chaimoungkalo (aka Brave). Scroll down for Bored Panda’s interview with Seine about the project and how people reacted to it.
Just a heads-up that the project is in no way affiliated with Netflix. Oh, and a small warning, dear Readers: this post contains spoilers for the most popular shows, so be careful if you haven’t seen them.
Two students, Seine Kongruangkit and Brave, came up with an innovative project to make sure that people stay at home
Image credits: mkobach
Here's a video of the student spoiler billboard campaign
Image credits: miamiadschool
“The idea started with Brave wanted to do something for the Thai people to raise awareness about staying at home for them. Because we both have to fly back from Germany because of the virus situation,” Seine told Bored Panda. After trying out a couple of different ideas and approaches without much success, Seine told Brave that they should publish their idea about TV show spoilers somewhere before someone else came up with the same idea. “Brave then wrote me a copy for the case video and then I started to make the video, put it all in mock-ups and it was all done in 3 days, then I posted it to adsoftheworld.com.”
Be careful of these spoilers if you haven't watched the shows yet!
Image credits: miamiadschool
Image credits: miamiadschool
Image credits: miamiadschool
Image credits: miamiadschool
Image credits: miamiadschool
According to Seine, most of the feedback they got was positive and some people even believed that it was done by Netflix for real.
“But I'm sure there is no perfect campaign. There are always things you can improve in a campaign. The Spoiler Billboard is a spec ad done by us under the guidance of Miami Ad School Europe. We had no intention of misguiding people. But also a bit sad that Netflix got all the credit when actually it's our student project and credits are all of our assets for us to get real jobs,” she said.
Seine revealed to Bored Panda that she and Brave are now working on a project for a hospital in Thailand. “This one is a real thing and we want to help them as much as we can. The coronavirus situation in Bangkok is getting worse. I only hope that it will get better soon so that we all can go on with our lives.”
She also added that she hopes everyone will stay creative during the quarantine and that people will all “stay the ‘eff’ home.”
It’s obvious that Seine and Matithorn’s project gave Netflix a small boost, but it doesn’t appear that it needs it. Since the end of January, Netflix boasted a 25 percent increase in the number of unique streaming viewers.
“You can imagine, all viewing is up. It’s up on Netflix, on CNN, on television in general. The system has been very robust and can help out a lot of people,” Chief Content Officer Ted Sarandos told CNN, explaining how the service helps people feel less isolated.
Here's what some people thought of the fake campaign
Image credits: lindsaymstein
Image credits: herrmanndigital
Image credits: patrickrooney
Image credits: kassieepstein
Image credits: VikkiRossWrites
Even Netflix responded when it saw the student project
Image credits: netflix
Bored Panda also spoke to Sabine Georg, Managing Director of the Miami Ad School Europe. "When the students ran the idea by me, I was pretty sure that they tick many boxes with it: extremely relevant, original idea, very clever and superbly executed, with the potential to go viral and tap into a corona-ridden world where #flattenthecurve and #socialdistancing are key," Sabine told us.
"They first planned it as an award submission only, but I suggested that they publish it for a wider audience than just the awards jury. And when Brave and Seine launched it, with the disclaimer that it’s student work and not a real campaign, it went 'through the roof' immediately, making headlines very fast and gathering huge response on all social media channels!"
According to Sabine, the fact that lots of people believe it's an official Netflix campaign shows that the project fits the brand well. "The truth is—hence the disclaimer—that this is (self-initiated) student work. But as far as I know, Netflix also likes the idea a lot."
"We are one of the most awarded creative schools in the world and our students are known for having great ideas that win prizes and help them win prestigious jobs in top agencies. But, typically, their projects cause headlines within the ad industry—i.e. Under Armour’s Rule Yourself campaign with Michael Phelps has caused headlines for being such a well crafted wonderful campaign and has been created by former Miami Ad School students (Creative Directors: Alexander Nowak, Felix Richter / Droga5)," Sabine explained to Bored Panda.
"But the fact that a student’s project makes news on such a big, global scale has never happened before. Also because never before has such an immense event like the spread of the coronavirus been the reason for creating such a campaign!"
Sabine told us that the Miami Ad School is a place where people become who they're meant to be. "Believe in yourself, be creative, and let the real world be your classroom. This is one of our core principles in teaching: we have teachers from Adland and from companies like Google and Facebook who share their expertise with students. Business professionals are mentoring junior creative talents from all over the world to bring out their best abilities in creation, focusing ideas, and as human beings because they learn in an intimate, collaborative environment with great diversity!"
She added that the Miami Ad School is looking forward to getting more creative talents like Seine and Brave. "Happy to get applications for our program here."