Netflix Family Plan

 In this article, an investor is talking about how Netflix is soon to offer a "family plan" and more Facebook exposure.

This will "allow Netflix customers to add multiple users to a single account at a discounted price," while Gigaom speculates that the plan "could look like a cell phone family plan, with an option to add additional accounts at a lower price point."

I think this is a good idea for Netflix and I am surprised they haven't thought of this sooner if this is indeed going to be beneficial. I feel like every company has a "family plan" option, just like cell phone plans do.

I don't know much about how Netflix works now so the question that I have is.. if a family purchases Netflix, which is $7.99 a month for delivery of DVDs to your home, wouldn't it just be cheaper to have one person's name under the account and have that person order the DVD each person wants? Then they could all split the price? I am a little confused because couldn't everyone just pay that one person and it would be cheaper than having a whole family sign up for the account for more money just to have everyone be able to order what they want?

If I have this idea wrong let me know but I don't see what a family plan could bring that is more beneficial than what individual could bring anyways.

What do you think of this family plan idea? Will it be beneficial to Netflix?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/04/19/new-netflix-feature-family-plans-facebook_n_850978.html?icid=maing-grid7|aim|dl4|sec1_lnk2|57200 

In Response to Diana Schaller

Diana rebuttals against an article focusing on McDonald's way of marketing in Japan and their deals and lack of healthy choices on the menu. I agree with Diana when she talks about how this is the marketing ploy for Japan's Micky D's and because their culture is interested in fast greasy food, McDonald's is going to give them fast greasy food.

It may not be morally right but, hey, McDonald's doesn't see the harm in it if their going to boost their sales. When it comes to being morally correct, there must be an audience to view the marketing as corrupt but as far as Japan is concerned, this food is exactly what they want. So from a marketing perspective I think it is the right thing to do.

Would you market this way in Japan if you were McDonald's?

In Response to Abby Hajec…

I agree that websites sharing information without a person’s consent is wrong. Pandora is not only to blame for this too, the companies it shares with are also at fault. If I found out what websites have this shared information of mine I would immediately have less admiration for them. I could understand if Pandora shared a person’s information with their consent when they signed up for it but without doing so is an invasion of privacy. This makes me wonder about other companies as well and which ones to trust and not to trust. I now think differently about Pandora and I don’t know if I still want to have an account with them. If I got rid of it would they still have all my information though?

Putting the King Back in the Burger

An article called the Return of the King in Slate Otalked about how Burger King, being the number 2 burger joint in the nation, next to McDonalds, is advertising the “King” brand mark in hopes for more brand recognition and to boost breakfast sales. Burger King’s concern is that when people think of fast food breakfast they usually think McDonald’s Egg McMuffin. They want to change that. 

Their plan is to “Wake up with the King” which, in the ads, is the slogan linked with the giant creepy guy with the enormous crown on his head oddly sitting at your bedside when you wake up. It is so disturbing that the image and thought of waking up with him allows it to be more memorable. 

I agree with their idea to make something so strange that it will stick in your head (although it is eerie). The only thing I think they are doing wrong is not having a distinct enough food to link with the ad. The ads feature the new Double Croissan'wich a couple times but there isn’t enough exposure of it. Burger King needs to the food front and center and the King in the background just doing his weird thing. 

Here is the article:

http://www.slate.com/id/2107697/

Do you agree that Burger King is doing the right thing? Do you think their Double Croissan'wich is something that sticks in the mind enough to be popular?

In Response to Nikki Perry...

Nikki posted about how new research has come out about Facebook fan pages and how they aren’t very effective for marketing products or services and I agree with her opposition to it. People use Facebook more so to find other people than products but newer, especially smaller, companies really can benefit from it. I usually use restaurant fan pages to find out the latest deals and what’s new on menu and I feel that many others do too. Mike Vatone could really benefit from an organized fan page with information about how his laundry service works and the details behind it such as pricing. He could have short term deals on his service and put them in his status so people become more aware of it. Right now Facebook is one of the most popular websites that people look at daily and if college students become more aware of a product or service they are more likely to use than not. So why not market your product?

Blood Diamonds: Why aren't they branded?

Imagine growing up in an area where you and your entire family are kidnapped to become soldiers in a mine. In this mine you are treated extremely poorly and frequently loose your limbs, die or watch your family member die to prevent competition against other groups doing the same thing. That is exactly what is happening in Sierra Leone, Africa, even years after an apparent settlement was made to prevent this from happening anymore. There are rules set in place so this does not happen anymore but these rules are not enforced and blood diamonds, also known as conflict diamonds, are still being shipped to countries all around the world to sell to people like you and I. These diamonds generate about $7.5 billion dollars annually and have contributed to over 4 million deaths in the process.

After watching a presentation about blood diamonds in one of my classes, I wonder why jewelery companies aren't branding their diamonds as NON blood diamonds. I realize they are more expensive but where are our morals if we can't pay a little more for the rock on our finger in order to save a life?

There are papers you can ask to see at the jewelers to prove that a diamond isn't a blood diamond but a majority of diamonds are. So why not start a company called Conflict Free Diamonds? Or at least advertise more that all the diamonds purchased by the company are conflict-free? I know it's not the most romantic thing in the world but I bet that sort of branding would be popular. Brand to save a life.

To the right is a video and song by Kanye West promoting conflict-free diamonds.

In Response to Dale Aubin…

I agree that the internet is taking over our society and that it is the best way to use advertising because it is so cheap and popular. I don’t see this way of marketing stopping anytime soon unless it becomes more expensive or less popular. The internet is always evolving, like you said, and constantly becoming faster and more convenient. In the future I can see advertising possibly becoming more annoying, though; popping up when you’re trying to watch a video or not allowing you to sign onto a website without subscribing to something. I know I hate it when I am trying to watch a video online and there is a 20 second ad that I have to see beforehand. It seems minuscule but it lowers my desire to continue to watch more videos because, hey, I am an impatient American and I don’t want to sit through ads. 

Also, I wonder what will happen to advertisements on television because of the fact that we can tape all our favorite shows and fast forward through all of the annoying advertisements which is another reason online marketing is so popular.

So, yes, I agree that online marketing is the most popular way to go and I do not see it slowing down anytime soon.