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Jim Keyes, CEO of Dallas-based Blockbuster Inc., was facing the biggest challenge of his career. In March 2010 Keyes was meeting with Hollywood studios in an effort to negotiate better terms for the $1 billion worth of merchandise Blockbuster had purchased the year before. In recent years, Blockbuster's share of the video rental market had been sharply decreasing in the face of competitors such as the low-cost, convenient Redbox vending machines and mail-order and video-on-demand service Netflix. While Blockbuster's market capitalization had dropped 47 percent to $62 million in 2009, Netflix's had shot up 55 percent to $3.9 billion that year. The only hope for Blockbuster, as Keyes saw it, was to shift its business model from primarily brick-and-mortar physical DVD rentals to increased digital and mail-order video delivery. In Keyes's favor, the studios were more than willing to provide him with that help. Hollywood wanted to see Blockbuster win the video-rental wars. Consumers still made frequent purchases of DVDs at its store—purchases which were much more profitable for studios than the rentals that remained Blockbuster's primary business. Blockbuster had made efforts at making its business model more nimble, but the results had been disappointing, and its debt continued to skyrocket. By the end of 2009, the company's debt had climbed to $856 million, its share of the $6.5 billion video rental business had fallen to 27 percent, and its revenues had tumbled 23 percent to $4.1 billion.

The objective of this case is to discuss how different business models and supply chain structures impact the financials of the firms in the DVD rental business. In particular, the goal is to convey that the characteristics of the movie (recent/big hit or old/eclectic) affect whether it is best rented from a centralized or decentralized model. In addition, as streaming gains market share, the impact will be different for movie types and business models.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the adoption of major exhibitions, often called blockbusters, as a sub-branding strategy for art museums. Focusing the experience around one location but drawing on a wide data set for comparative purposes, the authors examine the blockbuster phenomenon as exhibition packages sourced from international institutions, based on an artist or collection of quality and significance. The authors answer the questions: what drives an art museum to adopt an exhibition sub-brand strategy that sees exhibitions become blockbusters? What are the characteristics of the blockbuster sub-brand?

Using extant literature, interviews and content analysis in a comparative case study format, this paper has three aims: first, to embed exhibitions within the marketing and branding literature; second, to identify the drivers of a blockbuster strategy; and third, to explore the key characteristics of blockbuster exhibitions.

The authors present a theoretical model of major exhibitions as a sub-brand. The drivers identified include the entrepreneurial characteristics of pro-activeness, innovation and risk-taking, while the four key characteristics of the blockbuster are celebrity; spectacle; inclusivity; and authenticity.

These exhibitions are used to augment a host art museum’s own collection for its stakeholders and differentiate it in the wider cultural marketplace. While art museum curators seek to develop quality exhibitions, sometimes they become blockbusters. While blockbusters are a household word, the terms is contested and the authors know little about them from a marketing perspective.

Art museums are non-profit, social organisations that serve the community. Art museums therefore meet the needs of multiple stakeholders in a political environment with competing interests. The study draws on the experiences of a major regional art museum, examining the characteristics of exhibition sub-brands and the paradox of the sub-brand being used to differentiate the art museum. This paper fills a gap in both the arts marketing and broader marketing literature.

The use of the identified characteristics develops theory where the literature has been silent on the blockbuster sub-brand from a marketing perspective. It provides an exemplar for institutional learning on how to initiate and manage quality by popular exhibition strategies.

Considers why Blockbuster has a competitive advantage in video retailing. Details both Blockbuster's use of revenue sharing contracts with movie studios to coordinate the vertical chain and Blockbuster's “Go Home Happy” marketing campaign. Challenges readers to understand how revenue sharing contracts, which are imitable and sometimes used by Blockbuster's competitors, can nevertheless be a key part of Blockbuster's advantage.

By 2009 Netflix had all but trounced its traditional bricks-and-mortar competitors in the video rental industry. Since its founding in the late 1990s, the company had changed the face of the industry and threatened the existence of such entrenched giants as Blockbuster, in large part because of its easy-to-understand subscription model, policy of no late fees, and use of analytics to leverage customer data to provide a superior customer experience and grow its e-commerce media platform. Netflix's investment in data collection, IT systems, and advanced analytics such as proprietary data mining techniques and algorithms for customer and product matching played a crucial role in both its strategy and success. However, the explosive growth of the digital media market presents a serious challenge for Netflix's business going forward. How will its analytics, customer data, and customer interaction models play a role in the future of the digital media space? Will it be able to stand up to competition from more seasoned players in the digital market, such as Amazon and Apple? What position must Netflix take in order to successfully compete in this digital arena?

To examine the benefits and risks of investment in analytical technology as a means for mining customer data for business insights. Students will develop a strategy position for Netflix's investment in technology and its digital media business. Students must also consider how new corporate partnerships and changes to the customer channel model will allow the company to prosper in the highly competitive digital space.

This paper aims to explore whether crowdfunding creators can learn from previous experiences to have a better financing performance of future crowdfunding projects.

This paper uses Python to capture the data of 6,267 crowdfunding projects from one of the largest crowdfunding platforms in China (JingDong Crowdfunding) and the author use the negative binomial regression model and the OLS model in this empirical study.

The empirical results show that both the early-stage experience of creating a crowdfunding project and the early-stage experience of supporting projects of other crowdfunding creators can improve the financing performance of their newly launched projects. The social network of the previous projects and the “Blockbuster” projects initiated before can also make the newly initiated projects obtain better financing performance.

Current research on entrepreneurial experience shows that serial entrepreneurs have significantly different success rates than novice or inexperienced entrepreneurs but there is limited literature on the learning effect of crowdfunding creators. This study adds to the literature on entrepreneurial learning and provides suggestions to crowdfunding creators.

New product development, particularly the search for real blockbusters, is of crucial importance for any organization. But when a product quickly becomes a smash hit, the next best‐seller must be found – and then the pressure really starts. Creating a totally new market can reap financial rewards beyond the wildest imagination. Sony, for example, is currently developing the third generation of AIBO, billed as the world’s first “entertainment” robot. A runaway success in Japan after its sell‐out launch in 2001, the product has already created as much interest in the company’s other two blockbusters: the original Walkman and the PlayStation game console, both of which went on to transform their respective markets.

The constructs of re-deployment and co-deployment have been central to discussions of scope economies in diversified firms. We argue however that these constructs are also significant in the context of single-business firms. Increasingly, changes in technology and demand preferences have provided opportunities for entrants to attack incumbents with a different business model, one that may neutralize the incumbent’s advantage for at least some set of customers (e.g., Netflix vs. Blockbuster). In such a context incumbents often respond by modifying their business model. We note that several of the business model-altering responses of the incumbent can be characterized in terms of co-deployment and re-deployment benefits and costs, where co-deployment benefits/cost apply to the scope economies/diseconomies in running multiple business models within the same firm and re-deployment benefits/costs apply to the implications of moving assets from one business model to another. We then examine the set of strategic choices faced by the incumbent in competing with an entrant with a different business model. We identify five set of factors that are likely to influence the decision to choose between these alternatives – uncertainty spawned by the new business model, market segment targeted by the new model, the within-business-across-business-model co-deployment and re-deployment benefits and costs, the across-business co-deployment and re-deployment benefits and costs, and the incumbent’s prior performance history. Although some of these choices have seen some work, most remain relatively underexplored in the strategy literature. We highlight the potential for research in this area with a set of propositions that identify key conditions that should hold true for a particular strategic choice to be picked by an incumbent.

Most businesses concentrate on refining their business model to enhance results. We see examples everyday of market leaders such as United Airlines, McDonald’s and Blockbuster who have built their reputation on a sound, predictable and consistent success formula. Today each is in serious trouble because of it. This article offers a method of recognizing when such success formulas are losing their effectiveness as well as an approach to reinvent them. The article presents examples of leading companies which have stayed with their success formula for too long, as well as examples of firms which have successfully reinvented their business model. It is possible to successfully anticipate the need for change and enhance a firm’s business model to maintain and strengthen a market leadership position. A strong focus on the changing requirements of a firm’s customers can be achieved through active listening programs in conjunction with a proactive commitment to deliver improved value to them everyday. Understanding that success formulas can fail is important for all business managers to recognize. This represents a significant change from a more traditional approach where businesses concentrate on refining their current business model to improve results. Change in how customers perceive value is the key driver. Anticipating and actively responding to this changing value driver requires a willingness and dedication to reinvent the firm’s success formula as appropriate.

Over a two‐month period, the editor of this media review has searched worldwide for the most interesting and useful articles, blogs and books on the topic of strategic management.

In addition to his own finds, the editor sorted through suggestions by a team of veteran top managers and senior academics.

The result is a surprisingly diverse set of media articles about strategy and leadership on such topics as commoditization, myth of market share, blockbuster business model, negative effects of success on creativity, change‐agent trap, innovation and marketing ROI, open‐source economy, Idea engineering, polarized consumer markets.

URL links and references have been provided for the articles so that managers can easily follow up this quick scan of the media by reading the articles in full.

Provides a snapshot of what managers are reading and a guide to trends and fresh thinking.