“Wednesday” Season 1 smashed Netflix TV records in 2022, becoming the most-watched English-language series. Three years later, the Addams Family-inspired series has overcome the sophomore slump, with Season 2 already tallying a cumulative 625.9 million hours across its two-part release.
“Wednesday” Season 2 debuted its first four episodes to 50 million views, or 201.6 million hours viewed, in just five days after its Aug. 6 release. Using the streamer’s staggered-release strategy, the final four chapters racked up 219.2 million hours viewed in just five days after dropping on Sept. 3. For comparison, “Wednesday” Season 1 debuted to 341.23 hours viewed in just five days, though that was with eight episodes available to view at once. Within five weeks, that total grew to 1.31 billion hours viewed.
The sustained momentum is a testament to the work Netflix did to reinvigorate the “Wednesday” buzz after such a long gap between seasons. In particular, Netflix took advantage of the dark persona exemplified by Jenna Ortega’s titular character for its global marketing campaign — which has reached over 9 billion owned social impressions, one of Netflix’s most engaged social campaigns ever.
The key focus: appealing to the feeling of being an outcast that resonated so strongly with “Wednesday” fans from the start.
“‘Wednesday’ has this universal feeling of being an outsider, and there’s no other teen like Wednesday that can show the ultimate outcast,” Shelly Gillyard, Netflix’s vice president of U.S. and Canada series marketing, told TheWrap. “We leaned into that, and we channeled her attitude and voice to bring her wit and personality into every beat of the campaign.”
Being an outsider was, in fact, Netflix’s way in to collaborate with mainstream brands, with Cheetos naming Wednesday’s right-hand hand, Thing, its official spokeshand and rolling out limited edition Flamin’ Hot Fiery Skulls. Elsewhere, fast-food chain Wendy’s rolled out their Meal of Misfortune as well as a Wendy’s x Wednesday drive-thru pop-up, Wednesday’s.
“The whole campaign was about ‘What would Wednesday do?’” Gillyard said, adding that “staying in that vein made it [possible] for us to just continue to be really authentic to the show.”
The marketing campaign also saw collaborations with Booking.com in the U.S. as well as other brands across the globe, including NYX in France and Guaraná in Brazil. The cast also engaged in a global promotional Doom Tour, hoping to craft moments of cultural impact, much like the viral Lady Gaga dance, which the team could leverage even more after the musician joined the cast for Season 2.
“The impact of the song in Season 1, and how it took off on TikTok … created a great relationship, and she’s an incredibly collaborative partner,” Gillyard said, adding that her fans had come along the journey from that viral dance video in Season 1.
Despite Lady Gaga’s busy schedule amid the Mayhem Ball concert tour, the artist was quite present ahead of and during the Season 2 rollout. That included her performance at Netflix’s Tudum event, and appearing at the end of the cast tour at the “Graveyard Gala” to introduce her new song, “The Dead Dance,” which was also featured in Season 2.
“We were able to surprise and delight [fans] throughout the campaign, which I think was also part of the success,” Gillyard said, adding that the team has already seen fans and creators alike again engaging with the new dance.
Given “Wednesday’s” global fan base, Netflix felt it was important to extend beyond just the U.S., with the Doom Tour also making stops in Australia, Canada, England, France, Italy, Poland, Romania and South Korea. More than 200,000 fans came out for the events in 16 cities during a two-month span.
Fans across the globe were also invited to apply for admission to Nevermore Academy, with accepted applicants receiving a welcome package while rejected applicants received a rejection letter penned by Wednesday Addams herself.
“We knew we had fandoms around the world,” Gillyard said, “and so the intent was to surprise, delight them and bring joy about the show.”
“Wednesday” Seasons 1-2 are now streaming on Netflix. The show has been renewed for Season 3.
