Category Archives: Huh?

July 18, 2018 · 10:19 am

Messing Up Moviepass

Do you have MoviePass? I do and I think it’s fabulous. For roughly $10 a month (about the cost of a ticket here) you can go see one movie a day as long as they’re not IMAX or 3D. Too good to be true? It really seems that way but I’ve never had an issue using it.

You might be asking yourself how do they stay in business? Lots of other folks are asking the same question since I gather they have to pay the theater the full price of admission when you use the pass. I go to an average of one movie a week (4/month) which I gather from this article on Recode is more than average. They’re recently starting charging a premium if you want to see a very popular movie right as it’s released, but that’s a minority of what’s out there. Still, they must be losing money on most users so how do they stay in business?

In a word, data. I go to see some movies in the theater that I might ordinarily wait to see on pay cable or via streaming. I often hit the concession stand, which is where the theaters make most of their profit. Good deal for them, right? Where Moviepass is thinking they’ll make their profit is from understanding the moviegoer and selling that data. That’s why they’re so inexpensive – to scale quickly – and they’re hoping to become so ubiquitous that they end up getting a cut of the increased attendance they are generating (the 3 extra trips to the theater I make in a month!). With me so far?

A friend of mine also has a Moviepass that she was given as a gift. Her 6-month gift ran out the other day and she went to renew. Here is where the fun begins and where we all can learn a little something. There is no way to renew a gift subscription. Seriously. She wanted to convert the gift to a regular subscription on her own credit card and Moviepass won’t let her. Instead, they require that you start all over and create a new account using a different email. Let’s think about how many things are wrong here.

First, you’re a data company. By demanding an existing customer start all over, you’re blowing off all the data you’ve collected on them to date. Second, since Moviepass requires a physical card to work, you now must issue a new card. Besides being an expense for you (create the card, ship the card, etc.) it’s extremely inconvenient for the customer. Third, I’m anticipating that since an account is married to a device, there will be an issue when she gets her new account and tries to tie it to her existing phone. You can’t use your pass without using the app and the app is tied to a device and your card. There isn’t a single reason I can think of that makes this a smart policy.

This silliness has forced many customers to reach out for customer service (a cost!) and from the heated postings on Facebook, Reddit, Twitter and elsewhere, it’s resulted in a lot of lost business for Moviepass. One of the main advantages of the digital world is how there is far less friction in many transactions. Online commerce brings your shopping to you and you never leave the house to lug stuff home unless you care to. Moviepass seems to have found a way to increase friction among its existing customer base – those who received gifts and want to remain as customers. Not very smart in my book. Yours?

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July 16, 2018 · 4:13 pm

Building A Disaster

Have you heard about the Build-A-Bear fiasco? Build-A-Bear Workshop declared last Thursday “Pay Your Age Day.” Customers could come in and build a bear at its workshops across the U.S., Canada and the U.K. for the price of their age rather than the $50+ it normally costs. Not a bad deal if you’re an 8-year-old or even a 35-year-old parent. The response was overwhelming, with mile-long lines in some places. According to The Washington Post, some waits were seven hours long.

It’s great that there is a large, enthusiastic audience wanting to build these bears, but that’s about the only ray of sunshine here. Some stores gave customers who were turned away a $15 voucher. As a parent, I can tell you that the voucher does little to placate a disappointed child. They were counting on a new furry friend. Many of the ones turned away were members of their Bonus Club, a frequent buyer program, already and others had to join to get the discount. In other words, their best customers. Yikes!

The CEO went on TV and said: “There was no way for us to have estimated the kind of impact, those kind of crowds.” He added, “We did put a notice out for people that we thought the lines could be long, and we worked with the malls, but it was beyond anything we could’ve ever imagined.”

That’s the point for any of us who run promotions. You need to imagine what an overwhelming response will do to your operation. In this case, maybe they should have had people sign up to take advantage of the promotion in advance (and get their emails as a bonus) to get places in the line, much as one does at a concert to get in “the pit”. Maybe extend the promotion for a few days to let those people into the store at predetermined times. Heck, maybe take space in unrented stores in the mall and add capacity. Be creative, consider lifetime customer value, and spend what you need to in order to prevent a disaster.

No good deed may go unpunished and companies that disappoint their best customers rarely go unpunished as well. You with me?

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July 11, 2018 · 11:34 am

Quit Nagging Me To Death

I’ll state at the outset that I’ve always had a thing about being nagged. It’s probably a mother issue that stems from my tendency to procrastinate or maybe I’m just a rebel at heart. Either way, I don’t like being nagged. You probably have some sensitivity to it yourself.

With that in mind, I’m here to remind all of us that nagging is just as bad as a marketing tactic. Instead of the desired result (a sale), it might lead to the exact opposite (a cancellation, a return, or a vow never to do business with you again). Let me give you an example.

I received yet another email the other day from one of the golf publications to which I’ve subscribed for at least a decade. The email said in big bold letters that

This is your LAST CHANCE to renew your subscription and give a FREE gift.

OMG! I don’t want to miss an issue so I’d better renew right now! Except it’s a lie – my subscription doesn’t expire for well over a year. I went back and looked in my email trash and on average, they send me an email every 3 days urging me to renew. This is on top of the physical mail they send enclosed in an envelope with each month’s magazine as well as the occasional piece of stand-alone snail mail. Enough! Basta! Genug!

Fortunately for them, I enjoy the publication so I’m not going to cancel, but there are a few things any of us can learn from their constant nagging. First, I’ve become numb to whatever they send me. I toss the snail mail and I delete the emails, unopened. I can read the mailing label to see when my subscription really does need renewing. Second, the offer they’re extending really doesn’t benefit me. It’s not a particularly different renewal rate and none of my golfing friends are musing that their lives would be better if only they had a subscription to this magazine. It only benefits the publication – they get a renewal and a new subscriber at a low cost of acquisition. Presumably, they’ll start nagging my friend soon after the first issue arrives.

This publication is far from the only nagger in my life. Amazon’s daily emails, several golf schools, and many others continue to send me nagging messages every day. I do unsubscribe, of course, but new naggers seem to take their place. The messages seem cold and impersonal to me since most of them aren’t personalized beyond the name. I appreciate that people who put things in shopping carts and leave your site might need a little reminder to finish their order or that when you truly have something special going on it’s to the consumer’s benefit to know, but the daily barrage of crap just makes people numb at best or angry at worst.  Deliver value to the consumer. Educate them about your product without nagging them to buy. Explain the benefits in their terms. And don’t nag. After all, nagging is the leading cause of divorce and you can’t have customers divorcing you! What do you think?

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