Custom thumbnails: The changing face of personalisation strategies on Netflix

Abstract

Thumbnails, the small artworks used to visually sort the user interface on Video-on-demand platforms, are personalised and customised for users on prominent Subscription Video-On-Demand platform Netflix. This content strategy of customisation falls in line with other content strategies from Netflix’s past and is reflective of the increased personalisation of the consumer experience in the age of digital distribution. A pilot survey of Netflix user thumbnails gathers an initial set of data on the breadth of thumbnail personalisation on Netflix, and reflects on the ways that thumbnails, understood as paratexts, can demonstrate divergent content appeals to users, broadening the available ways to understand film and television texts and platforms themselves. This research centres the role of the thumbnail as a paratext that frames understanding of content and the broader platform, and in doing so visualises and humanises a vital aspect of algorithmic culture.