An Open Letter to Blockbuster Video Marketing Department

January 18, 2007 · 9 comments

in 2007,Rants,Werty


Blockbuster, I am calling you out for being idiots in regards to your online marketing strategy.

First off you are hitting the television hard with offers of your new “total access” video rental policy that lets users return mail ordered movies at a local store to speed up the rate at which they can rent movies. This is really good, and you should be promoting it. Second, you are also telling people that they can get a free trial of your service… a needed feature, since your main competition NETFLIX offers the same thing.

So it appears as you have 2 selling points. 1, a free trial – zero risk for the user, and 2 a feature that allows speedier turnaround time on the rented movies. I will even give you a 3rd, which is that you have in store coupons that can even be used for GAMES.

Now here is where you are fucking up royally. Whoever is the genius that runs your affiliate program, missed the meeting where you came up one of your selling points, THE FREE TRIAL. Why is this important you ask? Anyone who has been pushing your program or Netflix via the affiliate program cannot push that free trial. What is worse is that for a period of a month or two we were allowed.

What you are doing is diluting the message you are trying to send to your potential customers. If they navigate directly to your site they are greeted with a free trial page.

blockbuster-online.png

If they are just casually surfing the net, see a banner, and click through they can be greeted with a $9.99 trial offer.

blockbuster-dvd-rental.png

What are you trying to do? Are you trying to screw yourself by having a different online message from offline, or are you trying to screw your affiliates by trying to get the users to navigate away from the $9.99 page in order to find the free trial?

Sync your stuff up.

Sincerely,
The Trose

{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }

1 spudart 01.30.07 at 6:26 pm

I bet Blockbuster stopped reading after the first swear word.

2 Werty 01.30.07 at 6:33 pm

I would not doubt it. If they even read it at all.

I am going to cancel my account with them this month, just because they suck the same way netflix does.

It is a shame that Blockbuster put all the indie stores out of business in my area, because I would rather see the money go to them.

3 cnoah 01.31.07 at 1:36 pm

Wow. The $9.99 for the first month is an old offer. It’s all free for the first two weeks, no matter where you sign up. You’re retarded.

4 Werty 01.31.07 at 1:40 pm

Cnoah, you are a moron… read what I wrote… they are only allowing affiliates to push people to the 9.99 trial pages. It is an old and stupid offer since they advertise everywhere else that it is a FREE TRIAL.

If someone navigate to the site through an affiliate link they see the 9.99 trial page. If they have ever seen the ads else where they will look around for the free trial pages… thus fucking the affiliate.

5 cnoah 01.31.07 at 3:52 pm

I work at blockbuster and I’ve never heard of this. Is there a link?

6 Werty 01.31.07 at 4:45 pm

Here is their page about affiliates:
http://www.blockbuster.com/corporate/affiliates

Why you should be a BLOCKBUSTER Onlineâ„¢ Affiliate Partner…

* An established brand that active renters know and trust
* An easy and quick sign up process
* Cutting-edge marketing tools
* Track your success with web-based tracking and reporting
* $18.00 commission per special $9.99 first month offer sign-up

Why your audience will want to be a part of BLOCKBUSTER Onlineâ„¢ …

* First month cost of only $9.99
* 2 Free in-store rentals per month
* Availability of more than 65,000 titles

Here is what it would look like from links on Azoogle:
https://www.blockbuster.com/signup/rp/regPlan/p.25851/c.firstMonth999/r.16015/pc.azoo003

7 Idea Guy 03.08.07 at 5:35 pm

I checked the links that you gave. Yes, what you said are all there. How sad they are having this kind of something. I guess canceling your account be a great idea. And I hope they are aware of this.

8 terry hewitt 09.13.11 at 2:10 am

i would like to get ahold of marketing and ask that they offer us the costomers a disciption of the type of movie we were looking for as a choice on the menu. like i like movies about survivors of plane crashes ,but i dont know were to look. so if we discribe what we want blockbuster online could direct us

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