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,
Starting off as a mail-only service in August of 1997, the service rapidly bloomed into an online, paid source for thousands of movies, series, and other TV shows. Although their streaming option is the most favored, Netflix still offers users the opportunity to order DVDs and other forms of tangible movies. All in all, Netflix holds a multitude of positive and negative effects on society, both which include instant accessibility, immediate forms of entertainment, binge-watching, and unproductivity. Lastly, Netflix may soon become an overwhelmingly large company that takes the television and video distribution industries by storm due to its growing popularity and its ability to be cheaper than regular cable
This paper examines and analyzes the marketing aspect of Netflix Inc. To develop a clear idea of the entertainment industry, this paper explores the background of Netflix Inc. and the present market conditions of its competitors. This paper finds that Netflix Inc. is the fastest growing online entertainment platform in the market. However, due to the nature of the industry it has many threats and risks. After analyzing Netflix’s marketing reality and its SWOT, I gave some recommendations on how Netflix can improve its position in the market.
Netflix was founded in 1997 with the intent to revolutionize the way in which consumers watch movies and television shows. Their accomplishments both in innovation and in customer base for their service indicate that the firm has been, and continues to be, successful in doing so. Currently, the
Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph co-founded Netflix in Los Gatos, California in 1997. Between 1998-2000, Netflix launched its online rentals, sales, subscription service, and a system of recommendations that can predict a consumer’s choice (Netflix). In May 2002, Netflix announced its first public offering led by Merrill Lynch. They offered over 5 million shares of common stock for $15 per share.
The video rental industry began with brick and mortar store that rented VSH tape. Enhanced internet commerce and the advent of the DVD provided a opportunity for a new avenue for securing movie rentals. In 1998 Netflix headquartered in Los Gatos California began operations as a regional online movie rental company. While the firm demonstrated that a market for online rentals existed, it was not financially successfully. Netflix lost over $11 million in 1998 and as a result significantly changed the business model in 2000. The new strategy included focusing on becoming a nationally based subscription model and focusing on enhancing the subscribers experience on their website. The change in
Marc Randolph and Reed Hastings, entrepreneurs, founded Netflix in Scotts Valley, California in 1997, with Mitch Lowe. Hastings came up with the idea of a rent by mail video business after he had to pay a late fee of $40 for and overdue in-store copy of Apollo 13. After investing $2.5 million from the sale of his former company, Netflix was created.
As the world entered into the 21st Century, humanity has witnessed an ecology of innovation that ranges from artificial hearts and livers to iPods to Bluetooth technology to smartphones and many more ("21st Century Inventions That Made an Impact”). Each with its own unique attraction has become a catalyst in nature for how individuals think, act and live. Along with these state of the art developments, Netflix has become the cutting – edge service for internet streaming media. Deemed as “a worthless piece of crap” from Wall Street analysts, Netflix with tremendous leadership gained control of their industry and swiftly transformed the delivery of movie rentals ("How Netflix Beat Blockbuster: An Exemplar of Emerging Technologies”). Faced with impossible odds, we will discover how Netflix was able to survive, conquer and prosper as the emerging technology in their industry.
One of the distinguishing factors between Netflix Inc. and other video rental companies is their decision to bypass the traditional “brick and mortar” retail route and delivering their product from the warehouse directly to the customer. Netflix learned that they could cut cost by utilizing the internet for
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.
Today, digital technology and the Internet are deeply reshaping the motion picture industry with a trend toward the digitalisation and disintermediation (Zhu, 2010). Media streaming services are an example of this current restructuration. Providing an access to a wide collection of entertainment online at a cheap price, they have penetrated the monopoly that cinema once enjoyed (Herberg, 2017). A significant example can be found in the US company ‘Netflix’, source of nearly a third of all North American downstream internet traffic at peak hours (Hallinan & Striphas, 2016). Once a small DVD subscription service created in 1997, it offers today to its subscribers to watch its own produced movies and shows as well as content of other
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 a global provider of streaming movies and TV series. Netflix was founded in 1997 by Reed Hastings and Marc Dolph. It started out as a DVD-by-mail service in America in 1998, and in 2007 began streaming. Over the years the company has become very popular. Netflix has many effects on American culture that we don't realize.
Netflix, Inc. is the world's leading DVD rent-by-mail company. The Company was created by Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph in 1997 in Scotts Valley, CA. The idea came to Hastings after he turned in Apollo 13 in late and had to pay $40 in late fees.
Video-on-demand or VOD, a service that allows users to select and watch videos over the internet, will be one of the greatest innovation as stated in the Netflix case study. It will be a great opportunity for Netflix, but it will also be a challenge to integrate or do away with its current business model. Its current business model is one that relies on the internet and the post service to deliver DVDs to its subscribers. Netflix should carefully enter the VOD market without doing away with its current model. This will allow it to maintain its growing position as a giant in this media industry. In order to better understand Netflix and the problems it faces, we must first identify its strengths. What does Netflix offer its customers that its competitors do not? What differentiates it from its competitors?