Airport retailer Hudson News to offer Flexplay DVDs
Multi-year deal targets travelers, business professionals
By Jennifer Netherby -- Video Business, 7/25/2008
JULY 25 | Time-limited-DVD maker Flexplay Entertainment is expanding its reach into airports across the country as part of a deal with retailer Hudson News to sell discs in 200 airports starting in September.
The multi-year deal is part of reinvented Flexplay’s strategy to target travelers and business professionals with its no-return rental discs, executive VP of marketing Joe Fuller said. Flexplay discs play for 48 hours after being removed from their airtight packaging before they become unplayable.
Hudson News is expected to carry a revolving stock of 20 or so recent hits and catalog titles geared at less frequent movie watchers. The films will sell for $5.99 each, slightly more than their price at Staples and other non-airport locations.
Flexplay has licensing deals with Warner Home Video, Paramount Home Entertainment and DreamWorks. In most cases, the studios aren’t releasing movies on Flexplay until a month or more after they’ve streeted on DVD, and the studios aren’t putting all their movies on Flexplay discs.
In June, the company began selling the discs in 2,000 Staples stores across the country, targeting business travelers. Flexplay discs also are sold in truck stop chains Travel Centers of America and Luv’s Country Stores.
The company has experience in airports, selling discs in 30 locations through various retailers as part of a pilot test, which Fuller said proved the venue to be one of the most popular sales locations for the discs.
“In terms of velocity of product, the airport has been our highest velocity consistently in terms of number of units per store per week,” he said.
Hudson News will be the exclusive seller of Flexplay movies in the airports where it sells the discs.
The move into airports comes just before U.S. Airways cuts in-flight movies as part of a cost-saving move.
“As the airlines themselves continue to look at ways to cut or manage their costs, that’s definitely a great opportunity for Flexplay products in the airport,” Fuller said. Frequent business travelers who take the same flight regularly and are stuck with the same in-flight movies are another targeted demographic, he said.
Hudson News VP of corporate communications Laura Samuels said the addition of Flexplay is part of the retailer's overall strategy to offer services that "fill the gap" in areas that airlines have cut back.
"We've been kind of keeping pace in our stores with what airlines have been cutting back on," she said.
Meanwhile, airport DVD specialist InMotion Entertainment, which rents and sells DVD software and players, has plans to expand by more than 10% this year, to 57 stores, while remodeling and enlarging a number of existing locations.
