We’ve Woken Up to the World on the Other Side of Hollywood
Why Quibi is out of sync
“I attribute everything that has gone wrong to coronavirus,” founder Jeffrey Katzenberg told the New York Times. “Everything. But we own it.”
The WSJ reported that with missed subscriber targets, disappointed advertisers, a patent lawsuit from a well-capitalized foe, and stiff competition, the problems for Quibi keep piling up.
Quibi launched their ad campaign during the Superbowl earlier this year with commercials that told a very distinctive story. We saw ads featuring a pilot using the app when his plane couldn’t find a gate, or when a bank robber had some free time before getting picked up. The commercials primed customers to use the app whenever they encountered circumstances, out of their control, that afforded them the time to consume a little tid-bit of entertainment — a Quibi.
Jeffrey Katzenberg blamed the pandemic for stealing away the context around which the use-case of the brand was built. The pandemic locked customers into their houses, and there were no more on-the-go moments or daily commutes. This disappearing use case highlighted the dangers of leading the brand premise with ‘what’ rather than ‘why’.
The golden circle, as explained by Simon Sinek in his classic TED talk, describes how…
