MARK CUBAN
Through out Mark’s
twenty-Five plus years of business he has faced a muiltude of challenges from
investors to sales and customer service. When purchasing Landmark Theater
chain, Mark has set up a blog to find the answer from customers like you and I
to come up with a solution to place body in the seats of Landmark movie
theaters. http://www.businessinsider.com/james-harden-got-where-he-is-today-thanks-to-a-great-cover-letter-2012-5
As a customer and
connoisseur of the film experience, I think what is missing is the basic ideal
of business; product, pricing and marketing. Like many film exhibitors Landmark
depends on studios to provide a complete product that consumers want to view.
Product
What’s missing is
the studios no longer have the glamor of hollywood in corporated in their film.
The scripts lack sustains and what was once a world to escape, even just for a
few hours, we as customers are left without imagination as if we wrote the
script ourself.
Hollywood has failed
the theater exhibitors in providing film characters we idolize and reverence on
the big screen. Instead we are left with weak dialog and special affects for
our money. There’s no longer anticipation for the next 007 film with the latest
gadgets and smooth words of flirtation with Ms. Moneypenny.
Pricing
Although major
studios no longer control and own the film exhibition market, there are some
signs of influence. One can suggest there seems to be in place still to this
day “the run-zone-clearance system”. It’s what the oil companies call zone
pricing. Ticket prices in one area is higher than another area for the same
exhibitor chain. Role out release date, from cities to states all under the
direction of major studios prividing films.
Marketing
In recent years
exhibitors have tried to fill seats by offering everything from live concerts,
special events and give-a-ways to draw viewers. US theaters viewership has dropped
over 24% since 2010. The only thing that makes sense is that, each market is
different and there is no longer a cookie cutter nation wide plan for most film
content.
Oprah Winfrey
It’s ironic how one
business like Landmark Theaters, have a direct affect with the Oprah Winfrey
Network. Once again let’s start with product. The OWN channel have selected
twenty-four hours of networking programming to build viewership. The larger the
viewership the more advertisers are drawn to the channel. Which results into
more marketing or sales dollars, more job security and opportunity for public
stock growth to investors. http://www.oprah.com/own
Prior to purchasing
content for “OWN” there is an indicator to measure how viewers will react to
schedule programmed TV shows. Buyers of the network should ask? were they
theaterical releases? How was the film attendence and how long was the run?
These questions will help determine what percentage of viewers will follow the
film to “OWN”.
Thus begins the
negotiations process to buy product you can make money off of and add value to
your film library, increasing the company asset and make investors happy.
Conclusion
Create a successful
business plan that includes a strong product, sales and marketing section that
details how one supports the other. These are all key ingredients that provides
a blueprint to a successful business.
Just recently, the
history channel partner with Kevin Costner production to create a mini-series
of the Hatfield and McCoys. http://www.history.com/shows/hatfields-and-mccoys
The mini-series drew
more than 14million viewers. This long standing american folk legend brough to
life showed film and TV executives that, “If you build it, they will come”. A quality scripted product; excellent price,
monthly cable cost for the hole family to view and marketing. The reward for
this winning formula is equal to $114m, if view at theater near you, at a $8
ticket price, executives, listen to your customers, therein lies the truth.
