Market Orientation Process Of Blockbuster

In Porter's 5 forces model, the five underlying forces for an industry's structural attractiveness are the barriers to entry for new competitors, the intensity of rivalry among existing competitors, the threat of substitute products or services, the bargaining power of suppliers, and the bargaining power of buyers. In analyzing Blockbuster's business model and current position, it is evident that it faces issues in all five areas.

In contrast to Borders Group, Barnes & Noble which is a leading bookstore in the US recorded an 11% increase in their share value in the past year with the introduction of their e-book reader “Nook”. It is clear that Barnes & Noble were not “Myopic” in their approach and were able to retain and even grow their customers as well as profits by embracing a new product.

Blockbuster implemented a new strategy for customers to access their rentals in “five channels of distribution: in-store, by mail, through vending machines and kiosks, online, and at home (direct to the TV)” (DATAMONITOR, 2009). However, this strategy was a reactive approach to the problem produced ten years behind schedule. Wooldridge et al., (2007) stated that Blockbuster should select and adapt their strategy to respond to the fast changing market and maintain a competitive position. This was an obvious failure for Blockbuster. The changes in the market produced a decline in profit at a faster pace than the strategies that Blockbuster implemented to combat these losses.

Blockbuster was “the largest movie rental chain” in the Movies industry around the world (Biesada a). According to Rourke, Rothburd and Stansell (2006), Blockbuster mainly focused on “providing in-home rental, retail movie, and game entertainment”. It created 9,100 video stores and provided services to almost three million of customers in America and 24 other countries (p. 74). In 2010, the company filed for bankruptcy since it failed to adapt new technology in their strategies, and “was sold to satellite TV service provider DISH Network in 2011” (Biesada b).

The movie studios want customers to be able to get their movies and entertainment as easily as possible. The easier it is for people to acquire their products the more likely it is that they will. By offering many different options for customers to obtain movies and entertainment, Blockbuster has a strategic advantage over its competitors. The convenience that Blockbuster can offer in their ability to distribute the movie studios products is a definite advantage. Another advantage

This essay will start to explore and define the meaning of customer orientation in depth. The marketing concept and the marketing mix will help discover after what it means to be a customer focused firm. This will occur through the scrutiny of the term in respect to product, price, place and promotion.

When Quiksilver announced the start of its women line Roxy in 1990, they defined the brand as a “fun, bold, athletic, daring and classy” brand for young women. Market segmentation is a crucial marketing strategy and Roxy utilizes the four bases that are commonly used for segmenting consumer markets including geographic, demographic, psychographic, and benefits sought segmentation. The geographic segmentation is ideally unlimited for the Roxy target market because the brand offers clothes for both warm and cold weather, however, it focuses mainly on the “beach lifestyle” and is generally more popular in beach towns. The demographic segmentation of the Roxy brand, is aimed to attract young women between the

Shortly before their 25th anniversary, Blockbuster files for bankruptcy protection with a Chapter 11 petition. The failing company couldn’t compete in today’s market against Netflix, Redbox, Apple, and other internet-based businesses that provided mail-order rentals or digital streaming. Their business model needed to be revamped to stay competitive. This paper will take a look at where the problem was, the measures taken to correct the problem, and how Blockbuster can come back and be competitive.

Blockbuster is the largest movie rental retailer. With its opening in 1985, Blockbuster has pursued an ambiguous program of growth and expansion. Currently, Blockbuster owns and operates over 9,000 stores both domestically and internationally. In addition, Blockbuster franchises about a quarter of its stores. It is important to note that Blockbuster is undergoing a managerial struggle at the present time. The current CEO, John Antioco, and a major shareholder, Carl Icahn, are disputing Blockbuster’s strategy. Mr. Antioco has threatened to resign if Mr. Icahn succeeds at attaining a position on the Board of Directors1. Mr. Antioco believes that Blockbuster needs to develop new strategy to respond to the current market

“Marketing strategies can have a broad impact on the business in terms of instilling a marketing orientation among all those in the firm: the way of thinking or philosophy of the whole organization. However, marketing strategies can alternatively be seen as dealing only with the development of competitive advantages directly associated with the marketing function such as customer loyalty and distribution channel control. In the latter case, the domain is sometimes even further restricted by sole attention to the various element of the marketing mix rather than the more general issues of customer and channel relationships. There are two key

Blockbuster’s restructuring of the company under its new owners shows how they were open to organizational change. The text describes organizational change as the movement of an organization from one state of affairs to another. Blockbuster completely changed their strategy and technology in order to compete with the new technology based companies that put them in this position in the first place. Simply put, no one visited the stores to rent movies when they could just turn on their television to order on-demand showings for the exact same price without leaving their home or grab a couple movies for a dollar apiece while grocery shopping. If they did not change they were sure to fail as a business and the company would disappear into the long list of companies that failed in the economic recession. The change was forced by other companies’ utilization of technology that caused a drastic change in the market conditions. This shift enabled the cheaper, more convenient home entertainment to steal a huge chunk of market share from Blockbuster’s traditionally structured company. Blockbuster enjoyed a long period on top of the movie rental/ home entertainment industry and this could possibly be what caused the success of these newer

Even though it grew mainly due to the strategies and innovative ideas it developed in this industry, the fact that there was an absence of substantial competition also helped propel its success.

The presence of Netflix and Blockbuster in the movie rental industry has assisted me in developing this analysis of each corporation’s strength, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats as followed:

As Jobber(2012) was claiming, the marketing concept is "Achieving corporate goals by meeting and exceeding customer needs, better than the competition". Marketing is the process of telling a true story in an unforgettable manner. As a consequence, it became an essential tool in the competitive business environment. The main objective is to maximize the company 's profit by showing up with stunning adverts. Bearing in mind the development of technology, "It is well known that markets grow by the reduction of unit prices: this is how the computer became a household necessity", this could not be possible without a good marketing strategy (Kapferer 2012, p.205).

At the beginning the company was considered leader of its industry due to its capacity to customize a store to its neighborhood,