By Kevin Tran

An increasing number of brands are looking to advertise on Netflix, Variety reports.

The growing demand comes as brands seek to adapt to declining traditional TV viewership and a rise in cord cutting. Netflix accounted for 40% of total over-the-top (OTT) US household viewing hours in April 2017, indicating the platform has become a home for cord cutters.

Netflix has a strong aversion to ads, but there are other ways Netflix can allow brands to leverage its audience without running traditional ad breaks: 

Product placement. Weaving products into programming is far less intrusive than mid-roll ad might be. Product placement can also help shows feel more relatable and grounded in reality, because viewers can use these products themselves. For example, another SVOD platform, Amazon has done product placement in its show Hand of God, which incorporated real-estate listing company Zillow into the story when one of the characters looked to move.
Merchandising. 

Netflix could focus more on allowing brands to create products based on characters and items from its most popular series. Manufacturing brands could create the products, which retail brands would distribute, and these companies would split the revenue from merchandise sales with the Netflix. The company has already pushed forward with this effort and began selling Stranger Things merchandise in partnership with popular retailers.

Meanwhile, Nielsen had begun to track viewership of Netflix’s shows — this is information that brands should be very interested in. Nielsen recently announced it would start tracking viewership data — including age and number of viewers — for all of Netflix’s programming. Netflix has been notoriously secretive about its viewership data, and with a better idea of how many viewers each show has, more brands may want the platform to showcase their products.