Netflix Marketing Essay

Blockbuster Entertainment, Inc. was once a highly successful and profitable brick and mortar home movie and video game rental store. At its peak in 2004, Blockbuster had up to 60,000 employees and more than 9,000 stores. The idea behind Netflix came from an unsatisfied, embarrassed customer of Blockbuster, Mr. Reed Hastings, now CEO of Netflix, paid a $40 late fee because he returned the movie Apollo 13 six weeks later (Zarafshar, 2013). He began to contemplate ingeniously about a notion to change the movie-leasing pattern into a more pioneering industry. In 1997 Netflix was started as a DVD rental-by-mail business without subscriptions. In 1999, taking a stride additional in the direction of evolving the industry, Hastings began the subscription-based business mode based on renting DVDs by mail with plans reliant on the quantity of titles taken at a time. Netflix put forward 120,000 titles for limitless monthly DVD rental with free shipping no late and per title fees. Since that time Netflix has become one of the most popular subscription services in the world, and is now valued at over $28 billion and steadily increasing. What factors contributed to the success and failure of these two companies?

1. Netflix’s original marketing strategy offered several flat-rate monthly subscription options; in which, members could stream movies and shows via the Internet or have disks sent to their homes in a pre-paid and pre-addressed envelope. Free from the despair of due dates and late fees, members could keep, up to, eight movies at a time. Upon the return of a disk, Netflix would automatically mail out the next movie from the customer’s video queue. Members were able to change and update their queues as frequently as they liked. The sheer innovation of Netflix’s strategy encouraged several competitors to enter the market to compete directly,

cheaper and more convenient alternatives such as cable/ satellite providers offering recordings via DVR, cell phones, tablets and other electronic devices

By getting the word out through major portals, Yahoo, MSN, and AOL, and through its relationship with BestBuy, consumers were deluged with information about the Netflix service. The company offered free trials addressed the skeptics of a radically new service, and resulted in high conversion rates to continuing customers. The recurring transaction model helped consumers adopt the discipline of selecting films each week but without pressure. Furthermore, this process allowed consumers to order movies through a centralized and regional warehouse mechanism created efficiencies similar to what Amazon developed. Mail order catalog systems would be difficult for movies, but using the Internet let people both order and pay online(Carmia, 2002).

First formed in 1991, Netflix has become today’s predominant video rental service. They offer a hybrid service allowing DVD delivery by mail as well as streaming movies and TV shows via their company website or access on 200 other devices. Their unique business process has netted them over 16 million subscribers and revenue around $500 million annually. The reason for their growing success can be attributed to a good business model and just as important, properly implemented systems. An extremely efficient supply chain management system (SCM) and customer relationship management system (CRM) have helped Netflix become the world’s largest video subscription service.

After receiving a ridiculously high fee for returning a movie late, Reed Hastings said that there had to be a better way to rent and watch movies and TV shows from the comfort of their own homes. Hence, in 1997 Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph, a software executive, co-found what is known today as Netflix, “the world’s leading internet subscription service for enjoying movies and TV shows,” (Netflix, Facts). The purpose of this paper is to the process of exchange between Netflix and their customers, as well as Netflix’s approach to relationship marketing and how this marketing technique has helped Netflix leave their competitors in the dust when it comes to customer satisfaction.

The CineMatch software also allows Netflix to maximize their library utilization. Increasing the demand for older or smaller market movies not only assists Netflix in better meeting subscriber demand but also decreases the payout of revenue sharing that often accompanies the most popular new releases. Netflix has revenue sharing contracts with most of the major movie studios. Under the agreements the firm pays a percentage of the subscription fees for a predetermined period of time in exchange for receiving the most popular titles at a considerably discount over the whole sale price (Netflix SEC).

Netflix, the online subscription-based DVD rental service aimed to better satisfy customer in a way competitors didn’t, customized and personalized service with unlimited monthly rentals from a great variety of film offerings. Now they want to leverage their strengths to enter into the Video on Demand market

One the one hand, the fertility of the industry opened the doors to corporations that sighted substantial growth potential. New entrants with big pockets such as Walmart could pose a certain threat to Netflix, by exploiting a playing card based on cost reduction. On the other hand, barriers to entry became relatively significant as established video rental retailers such as Netflix have the experience and the knowhow to market movies to people. In this industry, firms that do not have a technological advantage can’t compete. The best example is Netflix’s CineMatch program that offered personalized film recommendations based on customer’s rental patterns. This way, Netflix was able to better serve its subscribers. From a cost perspective, the movie rental industry requires high capital expenditures, and the major expenses are highly related to acquisitions of DVD library and investments in technology (exhibit 2 continued). Thus, we may say that entry is difficult in this industry as the competing firms have reputation, experience and recognizable brand names.

Netflix also became a source of adverstisement for films not on huge budgets in helping creating awareness about the movies.

Netflix exhibits dominant economic characteristics in the online movie rental business. They enjoy strong market size and growth rate when compared to rivalry competition. The number of rivalries are increasing, and the market remains dominated by only a few sizeable rivalries like Blockbuster Video, Wal-Mart, Walt Disney Movies and Movielink’s Downloadable Movies. Netflix is determined to offer new and innovative technology to sustain their competitive advantage.

Netflix is taking the online entertainment rental market by storm. Reed Hastings and March Randolph began a movie rental company that required members to subscribe to rental TV show series and movies by mail in 1997. This was the newest way to rent movies to avoid lengthy drives and ridiculous late fees since retail stores such as Blockbuster and Hollywood rental were almost extinct. By 2005, the company already had 4.2 million customers subscribed to the movie service (Netflix.com). In 2007, Netflix evolved to digital technology. The company incorporated a new streaming service plan to customers that would make the service accessible at one’s fingertips. The convenience of watching movies went from receiving and sending DVD’s by mail to viewing a large selection of movies over the internet and television. According to Netflix.com, every year after introducing TV shows and movies on the internet, this company advanced to a series of strategic changes in a matter of no time including: (1) renting video games (2) offering service on most digital technology devices (i.e., I Pads, Video game devices, Mobile phones) (3) launching in different countries. In 2007, the company’s financial growth increased by more than half due to domestic and international sales. At this point, Thompson (2014) reported about the organization, “Already solidly entrenched as the biggest and best-known internet subscription service for watching TV shows and movies, the only question

Many of their competitors have longer operating histories, larger customer bases, greater brand recognition and significantly greater financial, marketing and other resources than Netflix does. Some of their competitors have adopted, and may continue to adopt, aggressive pricing policies and devote substantially more resources to marketing and Web site and systems development than Netflix does. The rapid growth of their online entertainment subscription business since their beginning may attract direct competition from larger companies with significantly greater financial resources and national brand recognition. For instance in 2003 the extremely wealthy Wal-Mart used their online site to launch an online DVD subscription service, Wal-Mart DVD Rentals. With increased competition reduced operating margins may result as well as a loss of market share and reduced revenues. In addition, our competitors may form or extend strategic alliances with studios and distributors that could adversely affect our ability to obtain titles on favorable terms.

Netflix was founded by Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph in 1997 and was originally based out of Scotts Valley California. The business model that they were working towards was to create a company that would offer online movie rental service made available by streaming media as well as DVD’s that could be ordered online and delivered to the customers’ homes. (Wheelen, Case 12). Netflix had a strategic plan to undercut the competition in an effort to stress the market and force weaker competition out of the field. This was a very successful plan and over a period of years it was able to force the closings of most of its competing market to include the mega giant Blockbuster video. Using a business

Long-time friends, Tom Herman and Kaleil Isaza Tuzman, had a great business idea, with a large market, and little competition. They took something that nearly everyone goes through, and marketed it in a more efficient way. They wanted to make the DMV more efficient, specifically; they wanted to allow consumers to quickly and securely pay their traffic tickets online. This business plan parallels Netflix in many ways, as it took something that we were