Netflix to Qwikster: Brand Development Gone Bad?

Many of you have heard about the issues concerning Netflix and its change in service, some of you might have even be affected by the recent 60 percent price increase. Netflix also introduced their newly branded DVD service, Qwikster. These decisions have caused a huge uproar in their client base, resulting in thousands of cancellations and an 11 percent drop in their stock.

There are several lessons that can be learned from Netflix splitting off their DVD service and creating a weak brand to run it. I put together five things that I think they could have done to avoid the chaos and confusion.

1 –Timing is everything.
As any good marketer will tell you, there are some really bad times to launch a new product or brand. August is a bad time of year since many people are not really paying close attention due to vacations, back to school and so on. January is another bad time of year—it is when customers are all shopped out and are recovering from the holidays.

2 – Apology not accepted!
CEO Reed Hastings announced the new Qwikster brand in the eighth paragraph of an apology email for some previous poor communication. Now I may not be the best marketer on the planet, or even on my block, but this is just a bad idea and does nothing for your brand development.

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3 – Giving DVD’s a bad name.
A sure sign of poor brand development is how many ways people can misspell your name. You can expect a huge surge of Google searches with many users searching for names like Quickster, Quikster, Qwickster, you get the point.

The name Qwikster itself is a weak name and easily forgettable. There are so many names Netflix could have put together to create a stronger brand. It seems like they settled on the Qwikster name in a short amount of time and did not spend the time to think things through.

By rushing the branding process, they did not see that the name Qwikster had been taken on a few of the social media channels, and now they are negotiating for the @Qwikster handle on Twitter. The individual using the account is listed as Jason Castillo, and the majority of his posts are laced with sexual innuendo and references to drug use. In one recent gem too foul to post here, Castillo ponders whether or not to “blaze.” The PR department at Netflix will have some fun cleaning up that mess.

4 – Customer confusion – Which way do we go?
Customers don’t like being confused; many will jump ship when they can’t figure things out, or if there is interruption in their current flow of service. There are many questions customers have and nobody seems to have any answers, and that’s likely to cause customers to throw up their hands and leave. If Netflix had been smart about this launch, they would have had a plan and could have prepared a FAQ.

5 – If it’s not broke, don’t fix it!
Have you ever longed for a rebranding of Netflix’s DVD envelopes? Or thought to yourself, “I’d pay for both disc and streaming services if only they had separate names and separate websites?” Me neither, and that’s what makes the changes so annoying to many. Qwikster announced that they will also offer video games for rental. That’s great and all, but their competitors Redbox and Blockbuster already offer this service. The biggest difference: Redbox just released their gaming service this summer and didn’t feel the need to rebrand itself in the process.

With the new brand and service change, the 60 percent price increase to customers, and the loss of Starz Play in the near future, Netflix has left a gap for their competitors to fill. With over 22 million customers who stream, and over 15 million who rent DVDs, customers are now confused and uncertain about the future of the company.

Is it too late for Netflix to turn back and save its own brand image? I don’t think so, but Mr. Hastings would have to move fairly fast and come up with a less confusing brand.

I am curious what many of you think, and how you would fix this situation. What would you have done differently?

Tags: brand development, brand strategy, Branding