Netflix & Qwikster – When The Story Starts Without You

Posted by Robert Rose on Sep 19, 2011

I woke up today, rolled over and grabbed my iPhone to check what happened overnight – and there was a long email from Netflix CEO Reed Hastings in my inbox.  It was basically a blog post – a long mea culpa saying that Netflix had “lacked respect and humility in the way [they] announced the separation of DVD and streaming and the price changes”.

So, to rectify that – they had decided to change the name of its DVD rental service and start to also rent video games.  The name of the new service would be Qwickster.  I immediately said to myself “wow, I’ll bet their customers are coming unglued at this.”

Sure enough – I roll out of bed and go to look at the blog posts – at the writing of this post there are more than 11,000 comments…. 11,000!!  And it’s only just now rolling through the Pacific time zone.

I’m not sure what Netflix is thinking – or even if they are – but this is a classic case of letting the story start without you.

In our book, Joe Pulizzi and I pose the hopeful notion that we should be building “subscribers” to our brand.   We suggest that this is the way to keep consumers fully engaged, long after they initially become “customers”.

This move by Netflix flies right in the face of that move.   Regardless of the intelligence of the business decision to move the DVD service to a different structure; and there are many (including me) who actually think that’s a necessary positive move for the company – this is a marketing (and storytelling) blunder of epic proportions.

I mean seriously – building “subscribers” is EXACTLY what Netflix Does for a living!!!

Three mistakes right from the get-go

• Throw the consumers right into the second act.  Their customers had no time to adjust to this. This is basically telling their DVD customers “we’ve sold you out to a “sub-brand” and we don’t value you as much”.  Do you think Star Wars would have been nearly as compelling if Obi Wan had found Han Solo to take him to Alderaan and then said to Luke “yeah, I’m going to leave you here to fend for yourself.  You’ll do well working in this bar – sorry about your family and all”.
• No research into their channels.  Netflix either didn’t care – or didn’t bother to check the Qwikster Twitter account.  It’s apparently run by a guy who cares more about scoring a dime bag than movies.
• Not Honest. In the end, consumers can sniff this out a mile away.  We all KNOW why Netflix is trying to get out of the DVD rental business – it doesn’t scale.   Painting it up with a fancy logo and throwing it out to the curb just doesn’t cut it.

It’s early days for sure – and we’ll see how this plays out over time – but my early take is that this will be a content marketing #Fail case.