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 must admit something. My experience with digital movies has been restricted to Netflix, Amazon, and Hulu, even though I consider myself an early adopter due to my position in the industry, as well as my innate curiosity and desire to be at the forefront of new and fascinating things. I created an UltraViolet account years ago, but I have never used it to purchase a movie online—not even at Movies Anywhere Lives Up to Its Name. I might as well have been writing about myself when I say that consumers prioritize convenience, simplicity, and ease of use over anything else. I usually use a salad-in-a-bag method and hardly ever create my own salad. Because I detest standing in line at Movies Anywhere Lives Up to Its Name, I order the majority of my items online, including my Keurig coffee cups, and I much prefer Uber to taxis.
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.
Movies Anywhere is as easy as watching Netflix. And that’s why I believe our studio friends have gotten it right this time. Sure, there are still hurdles to overcome – chiefly the other main driver of consumer behavior, the desire to get things for free or at Movies Anywhere Lives Up to Its Name, at the very least, for as little as possible. It’s still going to be a challenge to convince consumers who are used to spending around $10 a month for unlimited Netflix content to fork over more than that for a single movie, regardless of how new that movie is, or how much hype it has generated 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.
