Netflix thumbnails and their algorithm

There is a very interesting algorithm behind Netflix’s covers. It is clear that for a single series or movie the system is capable of producing thousands of different covers depending on the user’s taste. That is, if you watch many romantic movies, in your movie covers you could see romantic couples. Someone who likes comedies would then see the funny character from the movie or some comedian who appears in the movie even if their part is secondary.

For example, for Stranger Things there are more than 50 covers depending on the user, where 5% of impressions are received for the series from all our catalog of personalized Netflix series.

Let’s take the movie Pulp Fiction as an example. If a Netflix user who watches many movies with Uma Thurman could respond positively to a cover in which the actress appears. Just as a fan of John Travolta responds to a cover with the actor’s image.

The work of selecting artwork for the covers of series and movies is very delicate; for example, changing artworks between one session and another can change the user’s taste. A series that had interested them at one moment may no longer interest them when presented with another artwork. It can also lose them and suddenly make them forget which series or movie they were planning to watch afterward.

If it is all a science, the handling of cover artworks is what is called in UX and WebDesign the famous “Click bait.” All of this contributes a lot to how the user chooses what they are going to watch and that’s it.

This article is a machine translation of the Spanish original.

• Design
• UX
• Artificial Intelligence