Does Blockbuster have any clue how things work?

Blockbuster has launched this new ad campaign in recent months stating how they are a far superior rental store because you get all these exclusive, great hits when they come out on video immediately instead of waiting 28 days for it to come out with Netflix and Redbox.  I'm not sure how the mom and pop video stores are effected by this, if they have to wait too or not.  Any-who, spending millions of dollars to advertise on national TV with crappy commercials is always a smart thing to do when you are on the brink of bankruptcy.  Or are they already?  I haven't been keep up with the financials, but this is one case where if I were the banks I would just let the company dissolve and liquidate.  For 10 years Blockbuster has made bad decision after bad decision, almost not knowing that the internet even existed as Netflix and Redbox emerged and were adapting to people's behaviors rather than making them adapt to you. This latest attempt by Blockbuster to try and get new customers is just a new low and it makes no regard as to what current and potentially future customers actually care about. 

I did the blockbuster through the mail program from 2005-2009.  It wasn't too bad, but kind of pricey at $18/month.  I did the 3 at time, with 2 in store rentals per month.  Since I signed up for it pretty early in the programs launch I was able to use the 2 in store for games which is the main reason I stuck with it for so long.  They ended up dissolving that aspect in 2006-2007 for newer customers, very wise but maybe it had to do with the fact that they charge $8 for a game rental and in their minds were losing money.  I will give them credit that they started a great program where you could swap the mailers for releases in store so you didn't have to wait for it to mail out, but that was the only plus and something they should have done immediately being that they had hundreds of stores setup to do so.  While Netflix added online streaming which is widely popular, up until 2009 blockbuster made you pay extra per movie if you wanted to stream online.  The stores are blockbusters biggest problem.  Not just the fact that they have them and have to pay for them and didn't use them to their full advantage as a I mentioned above but if you've been to a store recently this is what you see in their new releases section which takes up half the store:  Shitty horror movie, shitty horror movie, shitty cheap horror movie, 4 different horror movies about same real serial killer (but they won't carry any NC-17), 50 copies of idiot high school movie half gone, 10 copies of great movie all gone.  So you are at the store already, you feel like you should leave with something, you maybe want to get a classic, but the store has maybe a 30% chance they actually carry the one you want.  What do you do?  This is where the queue becomes a huge advantage.  Even though you have to wait to get movies, you get what you want for the most part when you are in the mood to watch it.  Going to the rental store you are almost forced to settle for best available.  The old mom and pop stores did this as well where they just have such a huge selection to choose from that you are bound to find something you like if you don't already know what you want, while Blockbuster is always way too heavy on new releases.  Basically Blockbuster tried to run two companies, they have somewhat the same through the mail program as Netflix but with more expensive options, fewer selections and slower delivery times, and have the brick and mortar with a horrible set up and selection with Redbox doing the same thing but more convenient and direct,  but I'm ranting and trailing off now..

Now on to this 28 days thing.  The main aspect of the commercials tries to show people in numerous situations where you wouldn't want to wait long for something but they are told they have to wait 28 days for this service.  OH NO!  Well this is ridiculous, I'm at a restaurant and I have to wait 28 days for a table, what kind of world is this blah blah blah.  Because waiting in an ER is exactly like waiting for the huge release of the Sorcerer's Apprentice and Vampire's Suck.   The only aspect that the commercial advertises is that with blockbuster you don't have to wait 28 days a few new releases each season, is that their new program?  This is what their genius think tanks came out with?  I'm surprised that there hasn't been more outcry about this monopoly that Blockbuster has organized (bought) basically muscling out any type of competition on these releases for a movie first so they can try to be the exclusive rental company with shitty service.  Hey people instead of luring you with nice incentives and services to shop our store we are going to bully our way in and force you to buy from us if you want to see this movie now.  As everyone knows customers always respond well to force.  But this will barely make a dent in the market share that Netflix has, I could see it hurting red box somewhat due to it's limited selection, but Red box operates with such low overhead that they will most assuredly survive until BB goes under.

The majority of people though will not care about this 28 day waiting period, at least not enough to be completely dependent on blockbuster.  How many people do you know are just clamoring for the release of a movie to be able to rent it?  People don't wait in line to be able to do it.  Chances are if they are excited about a movie they see it in the theater and then get excited about the release date so they can buy it if they really liked it.  If they have waited 5-6 months to see it for the first time on rental, what's the big deal about waiting another 28 days?  You obviously weren't that excited to see it originally.  The 2 aspects of rental services today are the store and the queue.  With the queue you add a movie and you may move it up when you want to see it, but chances are you also have 12 other movies you might want to see and it will get here when it does.  With the store, most of the time you settle for a pick, but if that movie that they get first for 28 days isn't there then what do you do?  The other thing that blockbuster doesn't mention anywhere in the ads, which I guess is somewhat smart, is that it is only certain releases by certain studios.  Not every new release is under this new system. 

With all this it doesn't even factor in a lot of Netflix's current customer motivations which is older movies and TV shows.  We have netflix and the in the last 6 months of the 64 movies we have watched, only 4 of those were 2010 releases, and only 2 of those were within 28 days of the the initial release date.  Ultimately are people going to cancel their subscription with Netflix so they go rent The Other Guys, chances are if they go that route they'll keep it and go rent it at the store but maybe do this 1 or 2 times a year.  Sure I think this will probably effect some people, but enough of a percentage to warrant huge amounts of advertising and movie studio buyouts/lobbying?  I'm not sure what big win Blockbuster thinks they have here.   They tried to be a bully during one of the biggest declines in film quality over the last few years and not ending in any forseeable future.  DirectTV is starting a similar program, so be warned.