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An Image is Worth a Thousand Words

Netflix has implemented recently a new recommendation algorithm based on artwork. It serves up unique tailor-made images to its subscribers. These images are specially designed to keep you stuck in Netflix. It takes into account a lot of the same data factors we’ve mentioned.


They say that if they don’t capture a user’s attention within 90 seconds, he or she will likely lose interest and move onto another activity. Having such a short time to capture interest, images becomes the most efficient and compelling way to make users discover the perfect title as quickly as possible.

They have built a system that tests a set of images for many titles on their catalogue helping display a compelling image to drive engagement. Through many experiments and tests, Netflix arrived to the conclusion that seeing a certain range of emotions actually compels people to watch a TV show or movie. This is likely due to the fact that complex emotions convey a wealth of information to users regarding the tone or feel of the content, but it is interesting to see how much members actually respond this way in testing. An example of this is seen in the recent winning image (“winning” means it drove the most engagement) for the second season of Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidtbelow:


That winning image is the one that would work best for a majority of Netflix users. But they have pushed even further and given the enormous diversity in taste and preferences, they decided to put together different artwork for each user to highlight the aspects of a show or movie that are relevant to them.

In order to choose which image each user has on their feed, Netflix focuses on what other shows and movies users have been watching. For example, a member who watches many movies featuring Uma Thurman would likely respond positively to the artwork for Pulp Fiction that contains Uma. Meanwhile, a fan of John Travolta may be more interested in watching Pulp Fiction if the artwork features John.


Not all the scenarios for personalizing artwork are this clear and obvious but data does all the work in order to choose the artwork for each user and improve the Netflix experience (and keep users binging, of course).