Netflix began planning its tarot-themed campaign to announce its 2026 slate early last year. Now, around nine months later, it seems success is in the cards.
According to Netflix, its latest “What Next” campaign, which launched with the release of a hero film on Jan. 7, has already received 104 million owned social impressions across Netflix social channels; more than 1,000 dedicated press pieces across broadcast, print, and digital outlets; and the company’s fansite, Tudum, achieved its best-ever traffic day on Jan. 7 with over 2.5 million visits, thanks to a dedicated “Discover Your Future” hub as well as news stories and in-depth articles.
But the true success goes even beyond those numbers, with Netflix rolling out and adapting the campaign across 34 markets around the globe, including North America, South America, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia, with localized efforts and in-person activations all being tied together through the tarot storyline.
“We found that the tarot card and looking into the future really worked well for markets to localize,” Marian Lee, Netflix’s CMO, told ADWEEK. “They could pick up the shows and films that we were highlighting out of the U.S., but then they could put in their own local slate. And so it ended up being much more universal, which is always the goal.”
The campaign revolves around a four-minute hero film, “Discover Your Future 2026,” the creation of which is a feat in itself. The film, directed by Show Yanagisawa, features actor Teyana Taylor as a mystical tarot reader, playing into the idea of looking into the future.
In the video, Taylor leads a fan through 10 different worlds of Netflix shows, interacting with the stars of upcoming series including Cillian Murphy (Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man), Millie Bobby Brown (Enola Holmes 3), Luke Thompson (Bridgerton), Iñaki Godoy (One Piece), Lily Collins (Emily in Paris), Gordon Cormier (Avatar: The Last Airbender), Theo James (The Gentlemen), Omar Sy (Lupin), and even Sesame Street’s Elmo.
The majority of the film was shot at Shepperton Studios, one of Netflix’s owned production hubs in the U.K., with the streamer rebuilding show environments to bring the different series to life in the ad, even using the same vendors who work on the shows and films to ensure the visual effects matched fan expectations.
From getting the talent together—some, including Teyana Taylor, Lily Collins, and Gordon Cormier, who even pushed the campaign on their own socials—to assembling vendors and sets, Lee noted it wasn’t easy.
