Aussie DVD-by-mail and Streaming media company QuickFlix launched a New Zealand streaming service today (obviously they feel the DVD-by-mail market is served well enough already). Offering movies and TV shows for $9.99/month it seems like a great step in the right direction for NZ, but there are some issues.

The Good:

The company is already established in Australia and has existing relationship and a proven track record. This should make it easier for them to secure the all important content rights.

Already a number of ISPs (initially Orcon and Slingshot) have agreed to zero-rate the data so that users can take advantage of the service without needing to worry about their fragile data caps.

The Bad:

I don’t like to feel like I’m concentrating on the negative, but it seems like there’s a few significant issues with the service…

The technology is somewhat proprietary. Content can be viewed on Windows and Mac PCs and, in theory, Sony PlayStation 3 consoles and some Bravia TVs. That’s it. Unlike the popular US NetFlix service the content is not available through devices like the Apple TV or devices like the iPad, iPhone and Android smartphone. Also the content can’t be downloaded or saved for viewing offline.

Also the premium Pay-Per-View content is not available on any devices at all, only through PC and Mac computers.

The TV content is very limited. Currently only a very small range of BBC titles (and in many cases only the first series). Although to be fair we’re actually winning here – there is NO streaming TV content for the Australian service.

Very limited movie selection also – fewer than 360 titles, and less than 25 from the last two years (not including PPV titles), and many of those that you’ll never have heard of.

Before you read on…

QuickFlix have clarified their pricing to me on Twitter – the introductory price is the standard monthly price for people who sign up in the introductory period. So if you join before the 30th of June then your standard monthly price indefinitely will be $9.99 (unless there is a notified price rise in future).

This is still unclear on their site, and the stuff below was written as a result of that lack of clarity. Hopefully they will make this offer clearer.

I also have a big problem with the cost, or at least how it’s promoted. It’s advertised on the site as $9.99/mth. It says this is an introductory price, but there is no more information. If you click on the Join link you’ll see this…

“Subscribe to Quickflix – Only $9.99 Per Month” says the title in big bold letters. No “for a limited time” or “introductory price of” just a big, bold $9.99 per month.

If you fill in your details there you’ll be taken to the next page, where you’d hope to find some more details…

No more details on the regular price, or for how long you pay $9.99 or even any details about what you’re signing up for really. Also a delightfully confusing detail – “If you are joining as part of a promotional offer, there won’t be any charges if you cancel your subscription before the promotional offer period ends. If you continue after the promotional offer this is the credit card we will use for your monthly subscription payment.”

It would seem reasonable to assume that an Introductory Price might be a promotional offer so maybe you don’t have to pay anything now? But when do you? I don’t think the Introductory Price is a promotional offer. As far as I can tell if you put credit card details in there you’ll be paying $9.99 for your first month (actually 30 days – they bill every thirty days, not by calendar month) plus the $8.50 administration fee.

As of now there is NOTHING on the site to say how much the regular price is. It is $16.99/mth – getting close to twice the advertised introductory price – and that will be the price from June 30th. The only way I found this out was by phoning their help line, answered, eventually by Australian staff.

Unfortunately the person I spoke to knew nothing of the NZ service at all. He asked if I was interested in the DVD or streaming service. He quoted me Australian prices, and told me about Australian terms. If I hadn’t already been aware of the full NZ price (thanks to an Orcon press release) I would have taken him at his repeatedly-wrong word. Instead I told him he was wrong, and eventually, after a few minutes on hold while he went to talk to someone, found out when the introductory pricing expired.

While I’m not sure, I suspect that inducing someone to signup for a service on a limited time special offer without disclosing the full pricing and when it comes in to effect would be against NZ’s consumer protection laws.

I understand that today is the first day they’ve been open to the public and that there could be teething issues, but it’s not like they haven’t had time to prepare. Not having this information clearly available is simply misleading.

In general I like where QuickFlix is heading, but I think there are a lot of issues to be resolved first, and sadly I’m not convinced that all of them can be – the licensing of content being the primary one.

This astonishing video surfaced today

[vimeo http://www.vimeo.com/39135997 w=500&h=283]

It shows a grown man shoulder charging a yound kid on a skateboard. It then shows the same man striking at the throat of another guy (Leighton Dyer) who challenges him about his actions. 

The backstory is even more interesting – one of the things that Leighton can be heard mentioning in the video is kids being given spray cans. The whole event was recounted by Leighton in a post to the Muckmouth forums.

The youth skate competition at the heart of this was held at the Victoria Park Skate Park on Sunday. The event was apparently sponsored by Skinny (Telecom’s non-Telecom prepay mobile network) and Serenity (a drug rehab programme). It was organised by former drug dealer William ‘Doc’ Murdoch and claimed support from many sponsors including high profile brands like Dick Smith and Wild Poppies. 

To promote his sponsors the organiser apparently decided it would be a good idea to provide paint for the participating kids and encourage them to tag the whole park with sponsors’ names and other associated stuff. The park, which had been largely free of tagging suddenly looked like this

This may have gone largely unnoticed by most people but event judge Craig Platt, a talented artist in clamer moments, decided to forcefully stop the kid in the video and lash out when challenged. That changed things – that incident, and the event as a whole then got a LOT of attention. Links to the video were very widely spread on Facebook and Twitter – it has received 200,000 views as I write this, less than 24 hours after being posted.

So, what about the sponsorship thing? Well, once the details of the event started to become known people started publicly calling on sponsors to put things right. Skinny, apparently a naming rights sponsor, were the most obvious target and also the most responsive immediately.

Unfortunately their inital responses were not ideal – they tried to distance themselves from the event and organisers

@nzdodo Were gutted about the state of the park and what happened at the event. We donated in order to support young skaters, not this.

— Skinny (@SkinnyMobile) March 25, 2012

And

@manucaddie We were not a sponsor, we donated toward prizes to help support young skaters, but he used logos etc without permission.

— Skinny (@SkinnyMobile) March 25, 2012

It was frustrating to see because it was their brand painted around the park. If I were running their PR or social media I would have immediately said it was terrible and that we’d do whatever we could to make it right. 

And that’s what they did, which is fantastic, but unfortunately it doesn’t seem like it was their first instinct and it took them a couple of hours to get to that point.

In social media and PR in general I think often it’s not about being right, but doing the right thing. This is true of most customer-facing relationships too and is the core of the saying that the customer is always right – sometimes they aren’t of course, and you have to know how to deal with that but this time they were linked with this event and the right thing to do was repair the damage, even if the organiser was entirely at fault.

Unfortunately Dick Smith, another obvious brand to call upon, is not nearly as active on social media and just went for distance when they did respond

@DylanReeve We appreciate your concerns & thank you for your feedback. Please be advised that we are in no way affiliated with this event.

— Dick Smith NZ (@DickSmithNZ) March 26, 2012

I can’t imagine trying to manage PR for a large brand now without being well on top of social media. We’ve long heard that word of mouth was the most important form of marketing and social media is exactly that, only it’s easy to see, but if you’re not watching you just miss out.