Best Buy Bonus discs....Why? (1 Viewer)

[Malcolm R]

You probably have a small, local shop that would special order all your titles at full list price, if you want. No bonus discs, but then you wouldn't have to support all the big, corporate meanies either.


All retailers are free to pursue their own marketing/merchandising deals with the studios. It's not like there's only one deal to be had and Best Buy has it.

Wal-Mart and Target frequently get CD albums with different bonus tracks since each has pursued their own marketing programs with the record labels.

If Best Buy is the only retailer smart enough to make such a deal with the movie studios, they deserve the success.

 

[TravisR]

I think we should be glad that studios haven't released multiple bonus discs for the same movie. In other words, a Best Buy bonus disc for Shrek 2 (as an example), a Target bonus disc for Shrek 2, a Wal Mart bonus disc for Shrek 2, etc.

 

[Damin J Toell]

That has happened already with CD bonus tracks, at least.

DJ

 

[Tony_Ramos]

Matt:

You're right. I HATE discount retailers offering me more value for my money.

Down with corporate America! How DARE they offer unique benefits to doing business with them!


And if you're going to make the argument that they crowd out their competitors through exclusivity deals, think twice, the only reason they can do that is b/c they have the money to. Guess how they got that money?


Vote with your feet or stop complaining. Now.

 

[TonyD]

well. i guess that settles that.

 

[BrandonJF]

I can think of one DVD that this happened with. At Best Buy, "The Punisher" came with a bonus disc with a preview of "Saw". At Circuit City, it came with a bonus soundtrack sampler CD. Although, in that case, neither had any real bonus DVD content related to the movie.

 

[SteveBro]

A recent article from Fortune is relevant to this topic:

In Hollywood, Best Buy Calls the Shots
In the new, DVD-dominated movie business, retailers have become players.
By Evelyn Nussenbaum

Gary Arnold starts his day like any other show business executive; he reads Variety, the Hollywood Reporter, and the occasional movie script. He casually mentions a recent meeting with Alan Horn, the president of Warner Brothers, and an upcoming one with Peter Chernin of News Corp., which owns 20th Century Fox. He's on the nominating committee for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

But Arnold is nowhere near Hollywood, and he doesn't work in the movie business. He works for Best Buy, the electronics chain. He decides which movies will be stocked at the chain's 650 stores. And in the new, DVD-dominated movie business, that makes him a real player. "I'm not picking up the phone and making suggestions about scripts," he says. "But we're closest to the consumers. So when the creative people are rolling their cameras, we've giving them that perspective. It's a constant dialogue."

As the DVD has exploded in popularity, Best Buy, along with Wal-Mart, Target, Circuit City, Costco, and Sam's Club, have become the most important distribution channels for the movie business. U.S. consumers spent $11.6 billion on DVDs in 2003, but just $9.2 billion at the box office, according to the Digital Entertainment Group, a consumer electronics and movie industry consortium dedicated to promoting the DVD. The vast majority of DVDs were sold at those six "big box" retailers. Sixty percent alone were sold by Wal-Mart, Best Buy, and Target, according to the retailing consultant NPD Group.

Those figures have dramatically changed the balance of power in Hollywood. Reps like Arnold, once consigned to dealing exclusively with home-video executives, now meet with CEOs, producers, and directors to find out what a studio is producing and with whom. "By the time you've greenlighted a picture, it takes two years to bring it to market," says Ken Markman, a longtime studio marketing consultant. "So you have to know who your promotional partners are and have them sitting at the table to help the marketing team decide whether they can afford the movie."

Jeffrey Katzenberg may have been the first big Hollywood executive to publicly proclaim his love for retailers. When DreamWorks' Shrek DVD came out in 2001, he produced a video of the monster doing the Wal-Mart cheer—and showed up at the company's Arkansas headquarters and shouted the cheer out himself. Nowadays such efforts are commonplace. Best Buy helped promote Revolution Studios' Hellboy before it hit theaters this past spring, handing out a DVD trailer for the comic-book adaptation. "We go to the retailers a year early and say, 'Here's what the movie's like,' and bring in the director, who shows them the value of the movie," says Mike Dunn, president of Fox Home Entertainment. "Twelve to 18 months before the release, you talk about the story line, and the cast, and the producer. We're in constant contact,'' says Pam Kelly, executive vice president of sales at New Line Home Entertainment (which, like FORTUNE, is owned by Time Warner).

Indeed, these days there isn't a movie mogul around who can't discuss the finer points of just-in-time inventory. "We're a consumer-goods industry now," says Steve Beekman, president of Lions Gate Entertainment. Predictably, not everyone is thrilled with the new arrangement. "I'm not sure this is great for the content," says one veteran home-video executive. "If Wal-Mart is determining the preferences of the country, you could say that the red states are deciding what movies will be made." But ultimately it might be technology rather than matters of taste that shifts power away from retailers. DVD sales are expected to slow with the rise of video-on-demand (not to mention illegal downloads). In that case Microsoft, Comcast, Yahoo, or anyone else offering VOD will call the shots—and studios will have a new generation of masters to please.

 

[Joe Reinwald]

I wonder what the breakdown of each of those is...

Also, Matt, back to your original point--if the exclusive discs were sold at only SunCoast, for example, we'd be seeing the exact same thread by someone else, substituting SunCoast for BB.

 

[Matt Butler]

I agree. I just dont like that fact that theyre "exclusive"
to BB (or another store). As I posted before; I shop at Target and Costco because I think they are good stores and I do other shopping there as well. Ill pay a few bucks more for a title in fact so I dont support companies/stores I dont like.

Oh well. Ill live and move on.

 

[DeanWG]

I'm sure that the numbers are only reffering to the box office takes, but that's a fair game, I think.

When it comes to $11, you might be lucky to have a $5 matinee, but it's certainly not the norm. I'm sure you've been or at least seen a theater at night, and they are usually the busiest times, meaning people AREN'T normally heading for the early shows. And even early shows in many markets are now up to $8 and $9 dollars.

As for the popcorn/drinks, etc. I don't see how that's any more relevant than the soda and snacks you might happen to eat at home while watching a DVD. That money is linked to the theater company, not a movie studio.