Since I’m still a Netflix customer (at least until 9/24 when the new pricing kicks in per my billing date) I was a recipient of the soon-to-become-infamous email from Reed Hastings in my in-box this morning, which opens “I messed up. I owe you an explanation.”
I would have liked “apology” which would indicate a price rollback but “explanation” carries no such connotation and indeed regarding the pricing, Hastings informs us “we’re done with that!” The explanation is of the rationale behind splitting the streaming and DVD-delivery services; the mess-up was in not explaining it properly to consumers, which he now does in the email and more extensively in his own blog.
The streaming video service is now Netflix and the DVDs are about to become “Quikster”, a new orphan brand, suggesting that the “familiar red envelope” is about to become the equivalent of “AOL dial-up”, an analogy Hastings uses in his message though not exactly in that way.
I am fascinated by this turn of events. It’s like that story of the backpacker who cuts off his own arm to escape and save his life. It’s like watching Wil. E. Coyote standing his ground as the roadrunner approaches at full speed. And I am especially fascinated by evidence the decision was not made with full benefit of research and reflection by one of the world’s most recognizable brands. Do a web search for “quickster” and “quikster” (results will be roughly the same) and right now the top two hits are for an Amway-related scandal involving a like-sounding product, and a rather risqué definition on urbandictionary.com. Look up quikster.com on the internet registries and you’ll find the registration changed just a couple of weeks ago and as of this morning quikster.net and quikster.org were still available for purchase, suggesting haste and confusion in the name-changing.
I plan to stay tuned…. Though perhaps not as a Quikster customer.
UPDATE: just a few hours later, those web search results have changed quite a bit… I hope you will take my word as to what they looked like about 7 am Eastern this morning. Also with more reflection, I want to point out a huge failing of Quikster as a brand identity: it does nothing to say what this product or service actually does, other than the fact that it’s fast. I’m guessing that QuickFlix and QuikFlix were taken?