“My business … repeat customers!”

Regular readers will be aware that repetition and novelty have been a recurrent topic here recently, and it’s time to think about the value of repetition as a business model.

 

Not all customers are created equal. This is a lesson that Hollywood seems to have forgotten. It’s said that Viennese cafes tolerated artists buying one cup of coffee and lingering for hours over it, taking up space they required for other purposes, because they knew they could sell the same artist a cup of a coffee a day for the next thousand days, whereas if they gave said artist the boot in favour of a newcomer that newcomer might buy two cups of coffee that day and then never return. Empty vessels make the most noise, and the internet over time has become a plaything for empty vessels deafening everyone else. Think on Snakes on a Plane, if you will. The jokes, the memes, the rewrites online by fans, which led, via internet buzz, to actual rewrites and reshoots to give ‘fans’ what they wanted: and these ‘fans’ then didn’t show up in cinemas. It’s easy and free to hit like, and make a comment, and josh about with strangers in a thread; it’s harder and costly to get out of the house and go see a dumb movie that has been made just as dumb as you calibrated it.

Customers are the ones who pay in to cinemas. President Bartlet declared that decisions are made by those who turn up. And yet Hollywood seems to be tacking away from that. Let’s take Star Wars. I saw each film in the only original trilogy on its re-release with my Dad. When the prequel trilogy came out I saw each movie twice with different circles of friends. When Disney took over Star Wars I was dragged kicking and screaming to see Han Solo go for coffee, the only time since Jurassic Park I’ve kept my eyes closed during a scene in the cinema; and not from fear but from displeasure – the whole reason I didn’t want to see the film was the blinding predictability of JJ Abrams not knowing how to get into the third act without killing a beloved character. And that was the end of me and Star Wars. From repeat customer to not at all customer. And the same thing happened with the Hobbit movies. I saw each Lord of the Rings instalment in the cinema at least twice. I didn’t see any of the Hobbit movies in the cinema. From repeat customer to not at all customer.