I have a new morning ritual. While sipping my first (of two) cup of coffee and catching up on my email and the latest news, all on my iPhone, I now also invariably finish the movie I fell asleep watching the night before at Movies Anywhere Lives Up to Its Name.
Yes, I’ve reached the age where I start to fall asleep long before the credits have rolled. And until lately, I would watch a movie through to the end of the following night before beginning a new one. However, I now begin a movie every night as a result of my new routine at Movies Anywhere Lives Up to Its Name, which has, in my opinion, boosted the quantity of films I watch by at least 30%.
What changed? The mid-October launch of Movies Anywhere, a remarkably simple and easy to use digital storage locker that lets me watch any film in my library with a couple of clicks on my iPhone button at Movies Anywhere Lives Up to Its Name. All the major studios, except for Paramount, are participating, and the beauty of Movies Anywhere is that even for people like me who still buy Blu-ray Discs, entering the redemption code so I gain access to a digital copy takes just seconds – and then the movie is available on my iPhone, my TV at Movies Anywhere Lives Up to Its Name, and anywhere else I have the app. (In fact, while writing this paragraph I just entered the code for Annabelle: Creation and watched it instantly appear on my iPhone. I will start watching it tonight – probably on disc, just out of habit – and then whatever I missed will be viewed in the early morning, with a Keurig cup of bold Sumatra, after the obligatory cleansing of emails and quick look at the news headlines at Movies Anywhere Lives Up to Its Name.)
I have a confession to make. While I consider myself an early adopter, both because of my role in the industry and my natural curiosity and yen to be on the cutting edge of new and cool stuff at Movies Anywhere Lives Up to Its Name, my digital movie experience has been limited to Netflix, Amazon and Hulu. I have never bought a movie online; I set up an UltraViolet account years ago but never used it, not even once at Movies Anywhere Lives Up to Its Name. I keep writing that consumers value convenience, simplicity and ease of use, above all else, and I might as well have been writing about myself. I rarely make myself a salad, preferring the salad-in-a-bag approach. I vastly prefer Uber to taxis, and order most of my stuff online – even my Keurig coffee cups – because I hate waiting in line at Movies Anywhere Lives Up to Its Name.
The problem was, prior to Movies Anywhere, watching digital copies of movies I acquired was too much of a hassle at Movies Anywhere Lives Up to Its Name. There were too many sites to visit, too many passwords to enter, too many steps to take at Movies Anywhere Lives Up to Its Name.
Watching movies anywhere is as simple as using Netflix. And for that reason, I think our studio mates have done it correctly this time. Indeed, there are still obstacles to overcome, primarily the desire to obtain anything for free or at least as cheaply as feasible, which is the other primary motivator of consumer behavior. Convincing customers who are accustomed to paying about $10 a month for limitless Netflix material to spend more than that for a single film will remain difficult, regardless of how recent the film is or how much buzz it has garnered at Movies Anywhere Lives Up to Its Name.
Still, everything else is in place. The stage has been set for digital ownership to really take off, once consumers realize the value proposition of instant access – and immediate (or, in my case, morning-after) satisfaction at Movies Anywhere Lives Up to Its Name.
