Blockbuster Research and Development
Christian Bank | Robin DeBold | Jessica Martinelli | Bee Bass
BACKGROUND SUMMARY
Blockbuster was founded in 1985 by David Cook with the first store opening October 19th of that year. Early success of the store were due to their ability to customize a store to its neighborhood by picking films geared towards those demographics while also holding a huge amount of new releases. Blockbuster focused on rentals and sales of movies and video games. They rented family friendly titles focusing in new releases and stocking the stores in older titles specific to the demographics of their location. In 1993 Blockbuster was bought out by Viacom for $8.4 billion. The company saw its height in 2004 with over 8,000 stores. However after failing to adjust their business model to the changing economic times, viewing ability and competition of Netflix, Redbox and OnDemand they filed for Bankruptcy in 2010. By 2011 when Dish Network bought the company, most of the stores had been closed. People watch movies every day. The demand is there and Blockbuster will fill it. The challenges include changing the perception and building a community around the brand.
OVERVIEW/PROBLEM STATEMENT
Blockbuster needs to be rebranded in order to revitalize their almost non-existent company and bring them back as the leader of the movie rental/streaming industry. The company has previously shown signs of not adapting their business model with the change in renting and viewing habits and the rebrand will show people they have changed. In addition the name Blockbuster is dead as a brand. Public perception is that Blockbuster is gone, even though many franchise owners still have stores right here in the United States. The franchise owners are paying fees for brand recognition, for a name that doesn't bring customers. We want to revive the name Blockbuster and bring new value its name.
DRIVERS
Our goal of this rebrand is to bring awareness to movie fans that Blockbuster has changed with the times and is ready to be the leader in renting older, hard to find films and new releases. There is a demand for a service that gives access to older films whether that be physical, mailers or streaming. Blockbuster has the potential to be huge in the market again due to their massive brand recognition. Our top objectives are to: Build a website and app that is clean, effective and user friendly to offer streaming services immediately.
Open “Micro” stores in popular shopping centers next to grocery stores, coffee shops and gaming stores. The small size of the stores will create less overhead and enable an intimate experience for customers to come inside, browse the selection and engage with knowledgeable employees and fellow customers. Build community by having “Block Parties”. Blockbuster will have a mobile vending truck that will travel to outdoor events, parks and breweries. We will test the truck in the Sacramento area. The truck will feature concessions, lawn chairs, and a pull down projector screen for free movie screenings.
AUDIENCE
We are marketing towards people who grew up with video stores. Men and women age 22-45. Our audience define themselves as “movie buffs.” They feel like their current movie renting choices are lacking selection of older titles and are willing to pay to get them. They engage in movie culture, know the plots, details, and quotes of movies many people haven’t even heard of, and enjoy not only watching movies but analyzing them and discussing them with others who have the same passion. Their other hobbies may or may not include music culture, going to museums, drinking beer with friends on the weekends either at home or a local venue, and shopping for comic books, records, cd’s or cassette tapes. These people have an appreciation for when times were “easier” and they have an appreciation for analog. Our audience grew up with video stores and wants them back.
COMPETITORS
Our main competitors are Redbox, Netflix, and On Demand services. Locally to Sacramento we have Dimple Records. Our challenges with competing with Netflix and On Demand is that they our customer base is already using them. Netflix customers pay monthly and get to stream what is available and the option to pick movies to be mailed to them. The selection for streaming is diverse and offers original content, but lacks a large variety and older titles. The website and app are user friendly and their monthly price for unlimited streaming is affordable $9.99 package. We are different from Netflix because they lack a physical location and availability to rent a specific title immediately and will have a challenge to expand and make more profits. On Demand services through cable providers and applications, like Comcast, DirectTV, Google Play, iTunes and Amazon allow people to search through movies and rent specific titles. Downsides is that all offer very similar renting options with customer preference coming down to which one to use. With most of these services there is typically an expensive monthly fee for streaming availability and an additional cost to rent immediate titles. Blockbuster will differentiate itself by having a website and application that offers more information, reviews and general organization. Because we will be offering similar titles, how we stand out is our interface of website and app. It will have easier search capabilities with more inforamtion that movie buffs care about. Redbox offers Kiosks inside and outside of grocery and convenience stores. The rent selected new release movies on DVD and BluRay for a low daily price. They have low overhead because they just rent spaces within other stores. We will compete with them by having Kiosks outside our store similar to theirs for rush service however with our website and micro stores our availability for renting is more expansive and available.
In Sacramento Dimple Records offers the community new and used music, movies and books. They have six locations in the greater Sacramento region. Their advantage is they offer the ability to buy new and used movies and return them for 75% back in store credit. You have to pay a higher price initially but if you wanted to exchange the movie for something else it essentially works as renting. The selection is limited to what customers bring in but they offer new releases on the day of releases. Blockbuster is able to compete because we will be able to get more titles and offer a website and streaming service, which Dimple does not.
The Heart of Blockbuster Blockbuster is an advocate for community engagement. We’re explorers, dreamers, lovers, and fighters. Eyes wide open we aim to embark on the long winded journey with you to the top of the mountain, to fight the beast, rescue the princess from near death, run to the airport to stop the bomb, conquer the underworld, save the planet, and...
....honey
we’re home!
TONE
We are communicating to our audience the Blockbuster is resilient, and will come back and be bigger than ever. That we are about community and bringing diverse people together to share their love of film. We want our audience to remember what it was like to go to a video store, that sense of nostalgia will be present in the rebrand and business decisions. We are approaching the design with this tone in mind.
MESSAGE
We are Blockbuster, we will not be left behind. We can be the leader in our industry once again. We know you missed us, and we know we’ve been away. We just needed time to work on ourselves. It wasn’t you, it was us, but we’re better now.
Potential patterns:
VISUALS
DETAILS
The details of our rebrand and new business model is a focus on brick and mortar locations with kiosks attached to the building (think banks with ATMs) for our customers that want something quick with minimal people interaction. But the focus is the people and building a community around film again.
Video Development Our video is about people emotions when they watch film. We will show the faces of different people, sometimes alone, sometimes in groups and their reactions as the light of the TV hits their face. It’s about focused emotion, pure concentration and anticipation, then climax with faces of excitement and the a scream finished off with a excessive laughter, end on a happy note with people smiling and appreciating the time. Cut to the blockbuster logo.
Blockbuster Website Our website will be a portal to our comprehensive movie streaming library. We will differentiate ourselves from our competitors by focusing on film as an art form rather than just entertainment. Our selections will be curated by a caring team of movie lovers who want to preserve and share movies that hold a special place in their hearts as well as a place in our history as human beings.
Look & Features Ease of access to the movies is our number one goal. We want to connect our customers to what they want as effortlessly as possible. Our website will be clean and modern with a focus on the movies themselves and not on us. We want to build a framework that can accommodate the wide variety of movie covers. It should be easy to read and navigate through our choices. We will still use Blockbusters color palette of blues and yellows throughout the website. It will also be responsive so it can be used on smartphones, tablets, and various other streaming devices. Instead of endless side scrolling we chose
to have snapshots for each genre of movie that one can scroll down on. We will show a limited number of recommended films to you in a snapshot with the option to expand each section to see more choices. The snapshots will vary from generic types of movies such as romantic, comedy, action, etc. but will also have fun sections such as nostalgic, decades, themes, etc. Because of our focus on movies as an art form, we will also have historical information and fun facts about the movies we feature as well as listing off the people who helped make the movie, e.g. directors, writers, cast, etc. We will also partner with movie rating services such as Metacritic, Rotten Tomatoes, and IMDB for a rating system to supplement our own rating system and those of our users.
Community Portal Our website will be the hub of our community interaction. We will feature community events as well as have a live chat where you can ask a movie lover questions about certain movies or to recommend something for you. This will be the main page for information about our movie truck such as pop-up locations and screenings.
Deliverables • Logo (Mark & Logotype) • Movie Truck • Lawn Chair/Director chair • Concessions (Popcorn, ICEE's, Water, Candy) • DVD & BluRay Cases • Store Signage • Membership Card • Gift Cards • Uniform • Employee Lanyard • Buttons for lanyard • Tote Bag • Membership Brochure • Business System (Business Card, Letterhead, Envelope) • Website Mockup • App Mockup