Blog 4 - Let's talk about Netflix

Hi everyone,

I hope everything is fine with you. In this new post I want to talk about one of my favorites websites, Netflix. Well, I will not talk about how great and wonderful this company is to put online movies and TV shows with great quality, no, it is not about how good or bad Netflix is. This blog is about marketing, and as I said in my first post, I will try to relate marketing with two things that I really love, sports and movies (TV shows too). Since the last two post were about commercials related to the Super Bowl, I thought it would be a good idea to talk about something related to movies now, well, that is how we got to Netflix.

Marc Randolph and Reed Hastings founded Netflix in 1997 in Scotts Valley, California. The idea for this company came to Hastings when he had to pay $40 in overdue fines after returning an Apollo 13 way past the day he should have done it. Because of that Netflix was founded, a company that rented DVDs like any other company. However, in 1999, they introduce the monthly subscription concept, where the consumers would pay a fixed monthly fee and they have the right to rent one to three DVDs at the same time, the subscribers can keep the rented disc as long as they want to, but there is a limited number of movies that you can have at the same time, as I said before, therefore the consumers would only receive a new movie when they sent back some DVDs.

Reed Hastings, Co-founder and CEO of Netflix, holding DVD packages.

This was a successful story, however while Netflix was growing fast the DVD sales fell from 2006 to 2011, this led Netflix to think about changing their business model, so they started, in February of 2007, to stream movies online, basically the business the majority of people know Netflix for. I do not need to tell you guys, how successful this strategy was. This was a great business strategy by Netflix, they saw a tendency in the market, since the DVD sales were dropping, and they realized it was time to change things, otherwise they would probably not be as successful as they are nowadays.

In 2011, Netflix came up with a new strategy and started producing their own programs, starting with a political drama named House of Cards, which premiered in February 2013, and now it is in their third season, this TV show has some big names behind it, the leading actor is Kevin Spacey and one of the producers is David Fincher, known for directing movies like Seven, Fight Club, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and The Social Network.

David Fincher on the left and Kevin Spacey on the right.

Now Netflix has a great amount of shows, including House of Cards, Orange is the New Black, Hemlock Grove, Lilyhammer, among others. They just made a new partnership with Marvel to produce five different shows, telling the stories of Luke Cage, Jessica Jones, Iron Fist, Daredevil and the team of heroes The Defenders. What is more interesting about this new business from Netflix is that they basically have a marketing research in their own website, because people rating the shows and even make some comments on Facebook, about different shows, therefore, Netflix can see what people like more and can use that to make their shows based on that criticism of their own show and shows made from different companies.

Well, that is it for today guys; I hope you have enjoyed this brief story about Netflix. Feel free to leave a comment about Netflix, or anything that you want. See you guys in the next one.

Take care,

Leo.

References:

https://pmcdeadline2.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/netflix-logo__140509172739.png

http://conniedieken.com/images/uploads/blogimg/reed-hastings.jpg

http://gratiswelkomstgeschenk.nl/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Gratis-netflix-bij-abonnement.png

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/modal_800/2011/03/fincher-spacey-2011-a-l.jpg

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000399/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netflix

Blog 3: The Best Super Bowl Commercials 2015 - Part 2

Hello people,

Is everything good? I hope so! Last post I started to talk about the Super Bowl ILIX’s best commercials, and on this post I will continue to do that, but those here are the best commercials, in my opinion, or at least the ads that most stood out for me. On this list it is included one of my favorites TV commercials of all time, so continue reading this post to find out. Let’s go…

Microsoft: Braylon O’Neill

I want to start this saying that Microsoft and especially its owner, Bill Gates, are well known as trying to help everybody that they can, he founded the “Gates Foundation” with his wife, a foundation that helps a lot of people around the world, especially in terms of neglected diseases, such as malaria and tuberculosis, which is a great gesture and an example for the really wealthy people in this world. I said all of this, because this is a commercial to show that not only Bill Gates does great things, his company, Microsoft, does it too, helping people with physical disabilities to have almost a normal life. This is absolutely great in terms of brand image, because this commercial can make people wanting to buy more Microsoft products. These information means that this ad could affect the consumer purchase decision process, more specifically during the Information Search, the second step in this process. If that is the case, this means that not only more people would consider buy more Microsoft products, but more people would keep buying Microsoft products, this is called Brand Loyalty. In the end, this was a great commercial by Microsoft, the voice over and the music, with the images of Braylon O’Neill just added a lot of emotional punch to the commercial, clearly targeting the Millennials, which shows that Microsoft wants to attract the new generation and turn them in loyal consumers.

Mophie: “All-Powerless”

This is probably the biggest production of all the commercials on this year’s Super Bowl. There are a lot of special effects and a really funny ending. I am not going to enter in a religious discussion here about the way they showed God in this commercial or even if they should have shown God in the commercial. I am here to talk about marketing. So, basically as far as my knowledge goes, Mophie is a brand that has its products used by the new generations. Looking at this commercial, the first thing you can notice is that there is no emotional punch, there is only a great production and a funny ending that shows how necessary is their products. This made me think that this commercial is target to the whole family that is watching the Super Bowl together; I think that Mophie with this ad, wanted to present their products to people that did not know that they existed, they are trying to amplify their market, and what is better than the Super Bowl to do that?

Esurance: “Say My Name”

Ok, this is maybe my fan boy side talking, but I genuinely think that this is a great commercial. Who watched Breaking Bad will love this, and even people that did not watch the show, will enjoy it. This commercial try to sell the product by showing that you do not need to accept things that are not kind of what you want. They do a great job of using a really popular show, such as Breaking Bad, to make the public to identify with the commercial and basically go through the same process that I described in the Microsoft commercial, changing the Consumer Purchase Decision Process. This commercial clearly target all the Breaking Bad fans and all the people that may actually need the some type of insurance.

Clash of Clans: Revenge

This is just awesome… well at least for me. Basically, Liam Neeson is being what he normally is in his movies: a badass. This is a really fun ad, not only for a movie fan or a Liam Neeson’s fan, like me, but for everyone that understands what is to play a game in your cellphone. Basically, the product in this commercial is the game, there is no price during the ad, but since is an app for a phone, it has to be either free or really cheap. What I liked about this is the promotion strategy of showing Liam Neeson so involved in the game that he is as mad about loosing in this game as he is after someone kidnapped his daughter in the movie Taken. This is the commercial telling you how great this game is and how involved you will be if you try it. This is simply a brilliant marketing strategy, especially for the Millennials and the generation Y that know the latest action movies that had Liam Neeson as the main character.

Chevy: 4G LTE Wi-fi

Maybe it’s because I’m foreign and this is only the second time I watched the Super Bowl here in the United States (just so you know, the commercials are completely different in Brazil, during the Super Bowl), but I have never had a reaction to a commercial like a had to this one.

When the black screen came, I got so nervous and I could not believe that was real, and thankfully it was not. However, this is for me a work of a genius, they just showed everyone how important is the fact that the Chevy Colorado has 4G LTE Wi-fi in it, well at least for the fans of the NFL. Definitely it is not the most important thing in a car, but this is an awesome way to present a little thing that can make this truck different than the others, which can be a decisive point for some people when deciding which car they should buy. This is a commercial focused on the Generation Y, for people that like trucks and have the money to buy one, because even that the ad did not show the price, it is easy to notice that this is not a cheap car.

Well, these are my favorite Super Bowl commercials for 2015. I hope you enjoyed my list, if you like any other commercial of this year Super Bowl, which I did not put on my list, please feel free to comment and let me know what are your favorite commercials from the ILIX Super Bowl. See you later!

Take care,

Leo.

Reference:

http://www.gatesfoundation.org/What-We-Do

Microsoft: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wLXRt-qRBfU 

Mophie: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LuVsf_hE7gM

Esurance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ufrTjEY5dU

Clash of Clans: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GC2qk2X3fKA

Chevy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v9G-UAXAUko

Blog 2 - The Best Super Bowl Commercials 2015 - Part 1

Hi people,

I thought long and hard about what I should put in this post, and as I said on the first one, this blog will concentrate in commercials related to movies and sports. Thinking about that I realized that the best way to start this is to analyze the best commercials of one of the biggest sport events in the whole entire world: the Super Bowl.

We all know that Super Bowl Commercials are really famous here in the United States, just so you know, in this year’s Super Bowl a 30-seconds ad cost $4.5 million (FORBES). Yes, it’s that cheap. I will have to split this Super Bowl ads in two parts, because there were so many great commercials that I want to talk about it, and I do not want a post that is enormous. Before we start I just want to say that the last play call on that game was the worst I have ever seen in my life, give the ball to Marshawn "Beast Mode" Lynch. Anyway, let's start this thing.

Carvana Super Bowl Commercial

I want to start with this one, not because it was one of the best commercials, I honestly think that there were a great amount of commercials that were better than this one. However, this is a good ad by Carvana to show the trend of the commercials in this year’s Super Bowl, which was to target the millennials, who is the generation shown in this Caravana’s commercial, that usually do almost everything using technology and finding ways to do things as quickly and easier as possible (ok, I have to admit that sometimes that means the laziest way). Nevertheless, this is a good commercial to show this trend to make commercials with more of a emocional punch or maybe more funnier to capture the millennials' attention, this is an important information to keep in mind while analyzing this commercials.

BMW i3: "Newfangled Idea"

Let’s stay in the car industry with this great ad, in my opinion, made by BMW. This commercial started showing journalists Bryant Gumbel and Katie Couric in 1994, talking about what was Internet and showing complete lack of knowledge about the subject. The ad continue to the year of 2015 showing that they are in the BMW i3 car, and they discuss about the car, what was used to built it, what is the meaning of i3, and some other points. What stood up to me was that the commercial did an awesome job comparing the lack of knowledge that they had about Internet with the lack of knowledge about the car, showing that, as they stated at the end of the commercial, “big ideas take a little getting used to it”. This information tries to sell to the public that this car is as revolutionary and innovative as the Internet, but they did not show any price in the commercial, but since is a BMW revolutionary eletric car it will probably be expansive. 

Always #LikeAGirl

This is an amazing commercial that shoed us how insulting can a little expression, such as like a girl, can be. What stood out for me was the little boy that thought that he was insulting girls, but not his sister. This commercial bring valid points to how society still treat women as fragile, but then when you see the little girls and what do they have to say, you can see that they are not fragile at all, and that the real meaning for Like a Girl, is to make amazing things and do the best that you can. The product of this commercial is Always' products, basically products for women personal hygiene. The price and place they are not specified in the ad; the promotion is the commercial itself. This commercial can do women more willing to buy Always' products, because the brand is being so supportive for women’s rights, which is a great marketing strategy by Always, to try to influence the consumer purchase decision process, by having a better image for their consumers. Another interesting fact is that this is a very emotional commercial, especially for women that had problems during their lives, like bullying, this is a great example of a commercial that focused on the Millennials, because of the emotion involved on it and the feminism movement that is getting more stronger in this new generation.

Domestic Violence PSA

This is a commercial that basically complement to the one above, it showed a true story of this 911 call. I liked the fact that there were no actors in the commercial, and it was basically shots inside a house, because it makes you give more attention to the conversation. The product of the commercial is the service of the website, and if you keep in mind all the problems that the NFL had with the Ray Rice case, this is a perfect place to put a commercial like this, to try to keep in people’s mind what the NFL as an organization is doing to try to end violence against women.

Well, this is it for today. If you have something to add or to comment about this commercials, or other ads that you think can related to these that I showed here, feel free to comment down below. Thanks for reading, and see you on the next post.

Take care,

Leo.


Reference:

FORBES: http://www.forbes.com/sites/mikeozanian/2015/01/20/super-bowl-49-needs-120-million-viewers-for-advertisers-to-win/

Carvana: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YvDUf1ydGoo

BMW i3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1jwWwJ-Mxc

Always #LikeAGirl: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yIxA3o84syY

Domestic Violence PSA: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Z_zWIVRIWk