High Def DVD Format Marketing

The HD-DVD v. Blu-Ray format war is almost over. Blu-ray signed 80% of major movie studios to exclusive deals, so soon the choice will be made.

Why did Blu-ray win? Just like the Betamax v. VHS war of years past, the technology was not the driving factor. Also, strangely, the more competitively priced product lost. So, what was the magic factor?

I would argue that the same thing that makes most products successful is what won the day for Blu-Ray. Marketing, and more specifically the names of each product.

HD-DVD seems like a logical trail. HD is High definition television. So, HD-DVD should be High definition DVDs, right? Think about how many of your friends (or at least their parents) own a brand new flat screen, but still don’t subscribe to HD programming. They assume they are watching TV in HD because they got that expensive, giant plasma. The same problem happened with HD-DVD. Some people bought HD-DVD players, and then never bought an actual HD-DVD disc. They just assumed it amped up their normal DVDs. Some bought HD-DVDs and tried to play them on their normal DVD players.

Just to add salt to the wound – some normal DVD players “upscaled” normal DVDs to high definition resolution. But this is not true Hig-def. From about.com’s explanation:

The upscaling process does a good job of matching the upscaled pixel output of a DVD player to the native pixel display resolution of an HDTV capable television, resulting in better detail and color consistency.

However, upscaling, as it is currently implemented, cannot convert standard DVD images into true high-definition images. In fact, although upscaling works well with fixed pixel displays, such as Plasma and LCD televisions, results are not always consistent on CRT-based high definition televisions.

This did not stop the players from being labled “High Def compatible”.

On the other side, Blu-Ray, from the name alone is understood as a brand new product and concept. It has a neat web 2.0 name. There is no confusion with the old, normal DVD.

The ultimate litmus test came when I was home for the holidays. My dad who still doesn’t get the concept that he can check his yahoo mail on any computer. He thinks the email resides on his computer at home. My dad, upon seeing an ad for Blu-ray, leaned over to me and said “thats the next big thing in home entertainment”. This was after I had bought an HD-DVD player on one of those crazy black friday ads. So, I knew I was cooked.

It’s all about the name of the product.