More high-def sales, no breakout titles

Retailers promote catalog titles with store exclusives

By Susanne Ault and Jennifer Netherby -- Video Business, 5/25/2007

MAY 25 | A slew of elite high-definition titles landed at retail on May 22, pushing up weekly sales volume on Blu-ray Disc and HD DVD discs. Titles as high-profile as Buena Vista Home Entertainment’s Pirates of the Caribbean duo and Warner Home Video’s The Matrix Trilogy were not expected to set any sell-through records right out of the gate though, according to retailers who grappled with how to best merchandise and market the mostly catalog fare.

“This week is definitely stronger than your average week,” Hastings video buyer John Anderson said. “Time will tell, but we are expecting an increase of greater than 20%.”

Nevertheless, “the Pirates movies have been strong sellers, but the fact remains that they are still catalog titles,” said Anderson. “Casino Royale was a day-and-date release, and sales were much stronger. That title sold out many places on day one and took a couple weeks to get back in stock.”

Retailers did have their hands full, however, with more than a half-dozen releases in high-def. These included on Blu-ray, Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest and Apocalypto; on HD DVD, The 40-Year-Old Virgin and two SKUs of The Matrix Trilogy; and on both formats, Letters From Iwo Jima and Flags of Our Fathers.

Newbury Comics, for instance, on May 22 sold 87 units of Blu-ray and HD DVD titles combined. Its top high-def performers were Curse of the Black Pearl and Dead Man’s Chest, which each sold 15 copies and placed No. 9 and No. 11 among all 35 new May 22 DVD releases at the 27-store chain. Next came Apocalypto and the four-disc Ultimate Matrix Trilogy (13 copies sold each), three-disc Complete Matrix Trilogy (11), Flags on Blu-ray (seven), Virgin (seven) and Iwo Jima on HD DVD (six).

On its past best high-def day, March 13, the chain sold 23 copies of Casino Royale and six copies of Layer Cake on Blu-ray.

In an effort to maximize high-def disc sales, Best Buy, Circuit City and others merchandised the titles in a number of spots, making for a somewhat haphazard appearance at times.

At a Los Angeles Best Buy, copies of the Blu-ray Pirates films and HD DVD Matrix sets were sitting beside some of the week’s hot new standard-definition releases. A handful of Blu-ray copies of Apocalypto were placed with standard-definition copies of the title in a cardboard standee. All three formats of Iwo Jima and Flags of Our Fathers were in one standee featuring the two films.

“If you own a Blu-ray player, you might not know if Apocalypto is on Blu-ray, so we have to call attention to that fact,” said Brian Lucas, Best Buy spokesman. “Consumers don’t know which studio is supporting which format. [Mixing high-def among standard-def copies] is a reflection of the fact that more and more titles are coming out—not that [high-def] is necessarily showing that it’s a mainstream excitement driver.”

Also, regardless of some big name titles, high-def is not carried uniformly at retail. Target stores in Los Angeles and Arizona were not offering Matrix on HD DVD—which has a hefty pricetag of $99.99 for the three-disc set and $119.99 for the four-disc set—on street date. Arizona-area Wal-Mart and Blockbuster stores weren’t carrying any Blu-ray or HD DVD movies.

One retail trend that seems to be emerging is that current high-def movies are selling quicker than even elite catalog titles. The first known high-def title to sell 100,000 units is The Departed, which Warner Home Video released on HD DVD, Blu-ray and standard-definition simultaneously on Feb. 13. Also, the $99.98-priced HD DVD Planet Earth: The Complete BBC Series is the No. 1 release of all time in that format on a dollar basis, according to label BBC Video, and it was similarly released on all three formats on April 23.

“It’ll be hard to beat Casino Royale because that was a day-and-date title,” said Chris Anstey, Virgin senior product manager. Summer theatricals “Shrek 3, The Transformers, Pirates 3 will move very well once they hit Blu-ray and/or HD DVD.”

Store exclusives

Nevertheless, retailers are beginning to roll out store exclusives for high-profile high-def discs, even if they are catalog. At Best Buy, shoppers got $10 off their purchase of both Blu-ray Pirates titles. Circuit City offered an exclusive DVD-ROM gift card with purchase of both Pirates films.

Significantly, Circuit City chose Blu-ray Pirates as its first product to tie into this interactive card, which lets consumers download film-related material and earn $15 worth of store merchandise. The chain first offered a similar DVD-ROM card by itself, not attached to any particular campaign, during last year’s holidays.

“The timing worked great,” said Lisa York, manager of gift card marketing and operations at Circuit City. “It was great for gift giving for graduation, Father’s Day. The gift card was also based on the latest [Pirates] theatrical release” on May 25.

Both formats could claim wins during this big high-def week.

On The DVD Wars (www.eproductwars.com), which tracks sales of Blu-ray and HD DVD on Amazon.com, Blu-ray continued to lead HD DVD in sales throughout May, though on May 22, HD DVD made enough gains so that the sales rank of the Top 25 titles on the format topped the rank of the Top 25 Blu-ray titles.