By Ever walk into a Blockbuster and say “Weird, I thought you guys went out of business.” You can instantly tell what kind of day the employee is having, and it’s rarely answered with a laugh. Blockbuster went from having a near monopoly on video rental services, to having plummeting sales answered with no solution, to adopting cutesy critter ad campaigns, to desperately pleading the world to give them attention, and apparently the next step in their road to bankruptcy is to proudly announce that they still exist:
“The goal is not only to advertise what the company sees as its advantages over competitors Netflix and Redbox, but also to let consumers know that despite widely publicized struggles, it’s still open.”
Somehow they won approval from a federal bankruptcy judge to use $15-$20 million on their ad campaign that should launch nationwide this week and focus on the fact that it gets some new releases 28 days earlier than Netflix or Redbox does. If they can successfully save themselves from doom, then their PR company should expect a call from Mel Gibson.
I think they should stick with cutesy animal ads and then start selling animals instead of movies. It’d be…
Ever walk into a Blockbuster and say "Weird, I thought you guys went out of business." You can instantly tell what kind of day the employee is having, and it's rarely answered with a laugh. Blockbuster went from having a near monopoly on video rental services, to having plummeting sales answered with no solution, to adopting cutesy critter ad campaigns, to desperately pleading the world to give them attention, and apparently the next step in their road to bankruptcy is to proudly announce that they still exist:
"The goal is not only to advertise what the company sees as its advantages over competitors Netflix and Redbox, but also to let consumers know that despite widely publicized struggles, it's still open."
Somehow they won approval from a federal bankruptcy judge to use $15-$20 million on their ad campaign that should launch nationwide this week and focus on the fact that it gets some new releases 28 days earlier than Netflix or Redbox does. If they can successfully save themselves from doom, then their PR company should expect a call from Mel Gibson.
I think they should stick with cutesy animal ads and then start selling animals instead of movies. It'd be cheaper to just buy a metric Noah's arc and let reproduction take its course to save them on future business expenses. Trademark "lolcats" and you've suddenly got a much more promising business venture than "continuing to do exactly what we've been doing."
[Via LA Times]