Convex Group, a little Atlanta company plans to distribute their low-budget film 'Noel" with a new marketing strategy. A part of the new strategy is to release the movie on a self-destructing DVD, called Flexplay at the same time as it is released to the cinemas. The second part is the transmission over cable network television TNT about two weeks later. The company hopes to sell more tickets and to get higher revenues from the DVDs.
The technique of Flexplay is not very new and was tested by Disney, with some success in some cities for about a year. The Flexplay disk is a disk with a special prepared first layer. This layer reacts with the oxygen from the air, the colour changes from transparent to black and the disk becomes unreadable 48 hours after the package was opened.
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At the center of the Convex Group's plan is a low budget Christmas movie called "Noel," directed by Chazz Palminteri, that will debut in up to 10 U.S. cities on Nov. 12. On the same day, the disposable DVD can be bought for $4.99 through online retailer Amazon.com.
A little over two weeks later, the movie will air once on cable television network TNT, which Convex hopes will only spur greater ticket sales and higher revenues from the DVDs, which become unplayable 48 hours after their air-tight package is opened. |
I don't think that this is a marketing concept for the future, most people are watching a movie only once and why should they visit a cinema when they can buy the movie for the relative low price of US $4.99 over the internet. The cinema fans are visiting the cinemas in any case and they don't care about DVD releases at the same time.
The disk itself has for me also no chance for being widely accepted in the market. Just think about the huge required storing capacities for DVD rental stores when such disks will be used.
The full article can be found over at CNet News.com
Source: CNet News.com
