Case Studies
Growing Anime Fandom. Helping anime travel further by understanding what makes it resonate.
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With major anime titles in the pipeline—including breakout hits like Cyberpunk: Edgerunners, Castlevania, Devilman Crybaby, Yasuke, Baki Hanma, and The Seven Deadly Sins—Netflix saw a powerful growth opportunity: take anime beyond its traditional strongholds—Japan, France, Brazil—and bring it to a global audience.
They already had the platform to stream the best anime stories. What they needed was a strategy to spark interest among those who hadn’t yet fallen in love with the genre.
Who could they convert next? Which regions were ready? And do fans engage with anime in the same way across cultures?
From Global Interest to Local Intimacy
We started by identifying everyone engaging with anime on social platforms—however lightly or deeply. A dataset of ~125K people who engaged captured a full spectrum: from hardcore fans who followed studios, voice actors and cosplayers, to casual viewers who liked a Naruto meme.
Synthesis clustered these users beyond what anime they loved— by their values, their behaviours, and engagement within and outside of entertainment. Someone immersed in One Piece, Marvel and VizMedia is a different kind of fan from someone who vibes with Studio Ghibli, lo-fi beats, and beauty influencers.
This approach revealed six distinct anime audience segments.
Next, we prioritised the segments that offered the strongest near- and long-term opportunity for Netflix—evaluating them by size, level of engagement, portfolio fit, and brand affinity.
For each target group, we went deep:
The result: a clear, culturally attuned roadmap to grow anime fandom in markets as distinct as the Philippines, the United States and Mexico.
Netflix built its anime go-to-market strategy using these roadmaps—shaping everything from marketing and partnerships to slate planning. Different fans were met on their terms, in their language. Campaigns for Thailand looked nothing like those for France.
Here’s what changed:
“We have continuously worked to showcase outstanding anime from Japan and expand a diverse lineup that reflects its variety.”
— Kaata Sakamoto, VP of Content, Netflix
By rethinking audience boundaries, we helped Netflix expand anime from niche to global mainstream—without losing the heart of what makes it special.
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