∞ Survey: Qwikster name doesn’t resonate with consumers

Erik Sherman, for BNet:

…according to a quick survey done of 500 consumers by brand naming company Strategic Name Development, Netflix may have stepped into one of the worst muck holes it could have: blowing the name of its DVD division. And the reason it did was fear.

…By associating Qwikster with the DVD business, top brass made the complete opposite choice of what they needed. The company could have brought on new name (preferably something with a more natural connection to the service that avoided the infamous suffix) and associated it with the streaming service. Netflix would have used the classic approach of promoting new name with the established one and then, over time, switched the emphasis.

Survey respondents suggested that Netflix should have named its newly-minted DVD service something evocative of the original Netflix name.

Steven Fisher

Netflix (the whole) didn’t want the mail service to be hanging off the Netflix (the streaming) brand, presumably so the companies can be split completely later. Whatever brand they pick that isn’t similar to Netflix is going to take a while to build, just like the Netflix brand did.

Nobody’s going to be happy. The survey seems a bit silly to me. At any given time, you’ll find a majority of consumers screaming “Status quo! Status quo! But, like, cheaper!”
Anonymous

If memory serves, didn’t the name “iPad” get laughed at initially?

Steven Fisher

Ha! I think even Netflix (the company) would agree that Qwikster doesn’t have that kind of potential.

http://www.theuniversalsteve.com Anonymous

I really expect a site called Quikster to be covered with awesome GIF animations. (Yes, I realize I misspelled the company name. Also not a good sign.)

I tried to attach an awesome GIF that I thought they might want to use, but your site (wisely) converted it to JPG. I got it from this site if you want to see how awesome it is: http://www.daysofleisure.com/animatedgifmuseum/