How Netflix is creating content with Global Appeal.

At the end of a Netflix show, you’re offered to vote 👍 or 👎 and I gave The Indian Detective a Thumbs Up. I upvoted, despite the extra cheddar dripping from this 4 part installment which I watched at one go (yes, the ‘in’ term is Bingeing) of what I reckon will be a fun series to follow, when you want to decompress mid-week, after work.

Netflix Guidelines for Content:

• A show should appeal to audiences from Canada, to Calcutta (paraphrasing here)
• Demographics, Age, Gender are garbage. ‘Taste Communities‘ dictate content commissioning.

“Geography, age, and gender? We put that in the garbage heap,”

VP of product Todd Yellin said. Instead, viewers are grouped into “clusters” almost exclusively by common taste,

What does Netflix’s latest mini show: The Indian Detective, have going for it?

Admittedly, and this is imo only — I found lessons and guidelines worth keeping in mind when creating (or vetting) content for a global audience.

• Rope-in A list TV talent, even if for cameos. Shatner’s appearances peppered through the show is good talent acquisition, lending a ‘high-end TV show’ feel to the production. Anupam Kher, well known in India is a joy to watch. Russell Peters, holds his own inimitable style.
• It works in India because it features a “foreign locale” but its use of Canada is well knit and motivated in the story, unlike the willy-nilly use of the Alps or exotic ‘tourism promos’ that Bollywood indulges in.
• Vice versa, Mumbai is featured – though, peppered with cliche vignettes of the city and gratuitous sitar-tabla riffs.
• The show’s language is English, but the Hindi used is as bad as mine – The lesson I took away from this is, the English was clean, no heavy accent, yet had a subtle flavor to appeal to both, audiences in India as well as internationally. The Hindi, yes, could have been more authentic.

Casting Directors need to up their game as do Actors, who need to invest in their careers with voice coaching – to cater to a global audience.

Language for a global audience:

It’s an intricate balancing act between story, action, and use of the vernacular. Netflix seems to have a knack for doing this right – Narcos is a good example.

In India, I’ve seen production studios rely heavily on “Hinglish” that does no good for monetizing an international audience. Audiences spend more time reading subtitles or trying to ‘intuit’ hinglish and so, lag in following the story, leading to de-immersion in a show.

In creating for OTT (over-the-top TV) and a global audience, studio execs and OTT platform owners need to get rid of the old artifact of “Satellite footprint” and Demographic thinking.

Keep in mind, with OTT, today’s TV shows have the capability of ROI from a world platform.

The Netflix show “Indian Detective” is worth watching as a lesson in the nuances of content creation for a global audience, if you don’t mind the extra cheddar/chutney that oozes, every now and then.