Not sure if this goes here, but since it’s ultimately about DVDs and the people who rent them, I figured I’d throw it at this wall first, to see if it sticks.
Netflix and its imitators are slowly but surely eliminating the independent video rental store from the landscape. In an effort to delay the inevitable, for maybe another year or two at the very least, I need to find a way to get some of our customers who bailed for Netflix to return to the fold. The store is in a very distinct neighborhood, where a lot of residents pay lip service to such concepts as “buy locally” and “support neighborhood businesses.” Unfortunately, many of them don’t realize that sending their video rental dollars to Netflix is actually in opposition to those ideas. We need to find a way to remind some of them of this.
I’ve proposed this sign for the window. Big; full window; 75" x 54". My boss is reticent; he thinks that if people think we’re hurting, they’ll stay away. I don’t get this, but he’s convinced of it. I’d love some opinions on the matter. Thanks.
[ol][li]That sign is quite unpleasant to look at.Why don’t you come up with a way to compete with Netflix, and if you can’t, why not get out now before the death spiral?[/li][/ol]
The first two lines are just inaccurate. People don’t sit by their mailboxes, they come home from work and bring in the mail. They also have plenty of control over their movies via Netflix, which offers pretty much any movie for as long as you want and now even has a lot of movies you can watch instantly online. That’s far more control than a local video store can offer.
Besides that I don’t think many people are going to be shamed into supporting a local business. It might do more harm than good. A “locally owned and operated” sign is fine, but let people draw their own conclusions.
One thing you have going for you is that people might be cutting back on spending and the mandatory monthly fees versus pay as you go at the local video store might be an easy budget decision for people like me who end up sitting on the same Netflix disk for weeks at a time. I’d push that.
I once went to a video store that had a basic policy of your rental time being one day for every movie you rented that day, i.e., one movie for one day, two movies for two days, etc. I’d often grab another movie just to buy more time. Pretty sharp, but the guy did close up shop when everyone switched to DVD and his stock became worthless.
That and video games. I don’t think Netflix rents video games yet. Most video stores do. Gamers like to try before they buy since those things run 40-50 bucks.
I’d like it better without the last sentence, but then, I find the whole argument that Netflix is “more convenient” ludicrous. If I decide tonight that I want to watch Iron Man, I can walk up to Hollywood and grab it in fifteen minutes, or I can queue it in Netflix and wait around for three frickin’ days (provided I don’t need to send something back first, of course). The only way Netflix is more convenient is if you’re equally willing at all times to watch any movie you ever felt a fleeting desire to see.
That said, I do use Netflix, because their selection is worlds better than you’ll find at any video store (particularly since the large chains have unilaterally decided that the best way to combat this new powerhouse is to sell off 75% of their stock). The first part of your poster, though, speaks to my primary peeve about the Netflix service. It would more than likely convince me to stop in and check out what your store has to offer, so that I’d know what I could watch immediately whenever the mood struck…and given what I’ve read about your store, I suspect I’d be pleased with what I found.
The last line just strikes me as preachy and annoying, particularly since I despise “BUY LOCAL!” campaigns. Of course, if that stuff flies in your neighborhood, more power to you in exploiting it.
Granted I’m not your target audience: I already subscribe to our local DVD store, precisely because I prefer to shop locally (and because the store’s a good mile walk from our house, which means if we want to see a movie we gotta get in some exercise first). If I were shopping at Netflix, though, the things I’d wanna see in a sign would be:
Evidence that the folks inside the store were total movie nerds. The poster needs a bare minimum of one very clever movie allusion. I’m not a movie nerd, so I can’t tell you what that’d be, but that’s the sort of humor that’d be effective.
Evidence that the folks inside will make up in pleasant service for the convenience I’ll be losing by switching my dollars to them. That means no scolding in the sign, nothing to suggest that the people inside are gonna be judging me or in any way making my life less pleasant.
Something cheerily eye-catching. This could relate to #1–for example, a shot of Indiana Jones saying something funny and relevant, or maybe Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman exchanging a smoldering look with silly speech bubbles coming out.
If it looks angry, I’ll assume that the people inside are likelyto be bitter and unpleasant, and I won’t go there.
Also, do you have a subscription plan? That, for me, is a major draw of our local store: we pay once a month, and then we never have to think about whether it’s really worth it to go out and pay for a movie. I think it’s a great idea for local stores to have such a plan.
Interesting. Most of my store signage is along those lines: Rutger Hauer offering free popcorn, Patrick Swayze asking you to bring your snack purchases to the counter before opening, Queen Latifah asking you not to reshelve titles but to bring them to the counter. Our strategy for the window sign (me and the other manager came up with this sign) was to be simple and direct. And eye catching to driversby. But maybe I’ll rethink it to be more in keeping with the store’s actual personality.
Unless your sign tells customers something you can do that Netflix can’t, it won’t help you much. It sounds like you’re asking for money without offering anything in return, which is never a good way to run a business.
Are you even sure people will buy into the “support your local business” stuff? In my experience this only works where customer service is important. In other words, where people actually benefit from keeping a local shop around. No one supports local businesses out of charity.
One example from my neighborhood are the local pharmacies. They stay open because people trust them more with their prescription drugs than they do with the large chain stores.
I’m not a fan of the sign. Sorry. As others have mentioned, it comes off a bit angry and preachy. Why not emphasize your advantage over NetFlix, the ability to get your movie NOW. There has to be some famous relevant movie quote to that effect.
I think a window sign’s a great idea. There’s a lot going on in this one. I’d choose one idea (one of the ways you’re better than netflix, the fact that you’re local, your movie-geek status) and focus on that.
Also, keep it simple. People are going to see this as they drive by. Keep your headline to no more than seven words, and make sure the background isn’t too busy. You want people to get what you’re saying in about five seconds.
As far as I’m concerned, the main reason that Netflix customers should want to support their local video store is that, when Netflix finally flings that last shovelful of dirt over us, they–the consumer–will no longer have any choice: they will have to use Netflix, or some other corporate giant, and nothing else.
The customers that support us, consciously, and don’t support Netflix, seem to–anecdotal impression from various conversations–have two basic reasons for this:
[ol]
[li]The “buy locally” thing.[/li][li]The store’s personality[/li][LIST=a]
[li]Special displays on a particular director or genre or section[/li][li]Our Staff Recommends section, which we keep pretty freshly rotated[/li][li]Our customer-employee interface: recommendations, etc.[/li][li]Etc.[/ol][/LIST]There is, of course, simply no way we can compete with Netflix on late fees. If we didn’t charge late fees, some people would never return movies at all. That’s fine if you have thousands of each title, which is not possible for us. As it is, our late fees are the lowest in Seattle: they’re less than pro-rated rental. And we give breaks on them when they get out of hand.[/li]
Anyway, all great input, thanks.
So . . . would you guys mind keeping the ideas coming, until something comes up that I can steal and use? I’m thinking a picture of some star, or recognizable scene from some movie, and caption that riffs on that while still making its main point.
Sorry. As others have mentioned, it comes off a bit angry and preachy. Why not emphasize your advantage over NetFlix, the ability to get your movie NOW. There has to be some famous relevant movie quote to that effect.