WaxWorks VideoWorks leading entertainment wholesale distributor picks Blu-ray

[Tekman]

OCT. 18 | Distributor WaxWorks VideoWorks is offering accounts a meat-and-potatoes promotional kit to help explain next-generation DVD technology Blu-ray Disc to consumers.

“It’s somewhat expensive for us to do, but we can do it for a lot less expense than can the retailers,” said Kirk Kirkpatrick, president of WaxWorks’ video division. “They need these tools to be able to educate their consumers, and many of them have questions themselves that haven’t been answered.”

The POP kit includes two theatrical-sized posters, three lanyards for store employees, a demo disc (that plays in a regular DVD player) and five brochures. The materials highlight differences between the current DVD technology and Blu-ray, such as how the new packaging appears on shelves, as well as the enhanced video quality and interactivity.

The materials are free to WaxWorks customers, and Kirkpatrick said the company will be sending one kit to each of its sell-through accounts.

The company will not offer a similar promotional kit for HD DVD.

"We think that, after talking to the studios, they feel it’s important to have one format, and they’ve already picked sides,” he said, describing WaxWorks itself as “disappointed” that two formats were again competing for consumer attention at retail. “And we can’t come out promoting both sides—it’s just going to confuse them.”

Kirkpatrick said studios agreed to let WaxWorks use their artwork for the materials, and some even helped to defray a portion of the production cost. The intended result will be to give retailers and their customers a sense of the broader industry commitment to Blu-ray.

WaxWorks has extended a hand to help customers with the marketplace transition to a new format in the past. The company provided similar POP materials to stores when DVD was first introduced, promoting retailers’ ability to special-order specific titles for customers.

"People can talk about [Blu-ray] all they want,” Kirkpatrick said about the ‘show-me’ importance of the materials, “but if you go into a big TV store, they don’t talk to you about them, they have the big screens up there so customers look at them.”

Blu-ray promotional kits will ship on Monday, Oct. 29, and will arrive in stores the first week of November.
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