Netflix puts a live actor inside an LA billboard for three days

There are billboards … and then there are billboards. Entertainment-streaming company Netflix recently concluded an innovative brand activation in Los Angeles that featured an actor living for three days in a billboard high above one of the busiest parts of the city. 

To promote a new Netflix science-fiction thriller film called The Last House – in which a family fights to survive after becoming trapped inside their home with dwindling resources – actor and comedian Nathan Shoop spent time living inside the billboard’s furnished mock living room.  

Below the makeshift home’s bay window read a sign: ‘How long can you survive?’ 

Much to the delight and surprise of commuters on the famous Sunset Boulevard, Shoop could be seen in his dressing gown moving about the room and interacting with passersby below using a whiteboard. 

He ate breakfast cereal, read books, played the card game Solitaire and used a globe of the world to brush up on his geography.  

As the Netflix marketing team and its agencies intended, the high-profile out-of-home activation attracted widespread attention from the public, social media users and the mainstream media.  

Did the billboard have a bathroom? 

Entertainment Weekly, a digital publication covering the Hollywood entertainment scene, reported that “Netflix stuck a guy in a billboard to promote a new movie”, adding: “At the very least, the man should be able to endure the brutal heat wave currently smothering Southern California, as we hear the faux home is air-conditioned. Netflix didn’t immediately respond to whether there’s also a bathroom.” 

Famous Campaigns reported that “For three days, the man has eaten cereal, waved to commuters through a bay window and scanned the traffic with binoculars, replying to bewildered passers-by via a dry-erase whiteboard.” 

According to the online publication, Netflix has a permanent billboard on high-traffic Sunset Boulevard and has previously hosted several other high-profile OOH brand activations there.   

Watch a YouTube video about the marketing stunt here.