Starz Ruins the Movie with Interruption Marketing

Starz just doesn’t get it. Interrupting your viewers is a bad idea.

I was enjoying the taut Denzel Washington thriller Déjà Vu this weekend, until Starz interrupted the climactic final scene to promote its new series, Crash.

Starz literally cut the ending of the movie. They dropped a two-and-a-half minute trailer and commentary from Dennis Hopper over the movie I was watching, obscuring the video almost completely. The movie audio was muted. The movie, as you can imagine, was ruined.

Here’s a clip of their intrusion (just 40 seconds of the 150-second ad):

 

I’ve seen Déjà Vu before. I know how it ends. The final 3-5 minutes of the film are critical to the plot. Why interrupt the movie there, of all places?

Never mind, I know why.

Starz, by the way, is a premium movie channel — as in, pay extra. I’ll pay extra for top-tier movies. I’ll pay extra for no commercial interruptions. I won’t pay for Starz to ruin the end of the movie I’m paying to watch.

Editor’s Note: I sent an email with a link to this post to Starz executives. Executive Director of Corporate Communications Eric Becker sent the following response. Kudos, Starz, for taking action.

Scott –

Thank you so much for bringing this to our attention. I have followed up with our heads of Broadcast Operations and On-Air Operations and indeed, this appears purely to be a matter of human error on our part – not a question of poor judgment.

We are very thankful to have loyal viewers and other influential bloggers, such as yourself, who watch our product regularly and take the time to let us know when lapses of this sort happen. First time I have heard of this sort of mistake in my nearly 10 years at the company.

The respective executives mentioned above are checking their logs from last weekend to try and get a more precise answer as to how and why this specific incident Zayıflama maurers zayiflama hapihappened, but what I can say with certainty is that interrupting the end of a film prior to the credits is not something we would ordinarily do.

You are correct that our subscribers deserve a rich, uninterrupted movie and we apologize for the mistake that led to us not delivering that “premium” experience to you and other viewers during this airing of Deja Vu.

Regards,

 

Eric Becker
Executive Director of Corporate Communications
Starz Entertainment 

  • http://newmedialisa.com Lisa Hoffmann

    Yeah, pissing your customers off is probably a bad idea. What are they thinking? I don't pay for premium channels but if I did I'd cancel Starz if this is the kind of advertising they favor. It'd be great if they see this and rethink this tactic.

    Starz people are you listening?

  • http://www.yaffetidbitsblog.com Mike McClure

    That's truly horrible marketing. Someone wasn't thinking about the user experience at all. And they should be be tied to a chair with loud Barry Manilow music pumped into their ears for five hours while they're trying ot watch the sweeps week episodes of all their favorite shows. I've learned to glance over at and then ignore the little dancing people or flying objects that appear in the corner of my screen while watching a show. But to block out and talk over the climax of a movie? Bad, bad, bad.

  • Bone

    Cancelled your subscription yet?

  • http://www.mediaemerging.com Scott Hepburn

    Don't know for sure if Starz is using any tools to listen to blogs or Twitter, Lisa, but they responded to my email within a few hours. That impressed me. I hope they have someone monitoring social media, too.

  • http://www.mediaemerging.com Scott Hepburn

    TBS and TNT are the worst offenders with those little animation pop-overs (advertising people, what are annoying things called, anyway?).

    Looks like this blip with Starz was just a slip up — they're looking into the cause.

  • Bone

    My initial comment was more of a reference to how most people would react. You handled it the right way.

    It looked like to me initially that it was what normally runs during the credits. By all accounts this was a technical error.

    Damned computers.

  • http://www.mediaemerging.com Scott Hepburn

    Heh. Ten years ago, the right response would have been for me to speak directly to Starz about it. Today, we blog about it, and the whole world hears us gripe. I guess years and years of unresponsive customer service by big companies has its price.

  • Bone

    Yes. And that's the problem I think we will see with so called “listening” on twitter et. al. That it will become the front line customer service interface rather than engaging on a personal level at the point of purchase.

    I said this RE: Beth Harte's experience with Best Buy. It should have never gotten to that level. If so, the customer service environment as a whole is broken. And by that time. I am not a reluctant consumer in your store. I am probably not going to walk in there again. Given the circumstances she described. This, coming from a guy who is hands out “benefit of the doubt” by the shovel-full.

    Best Buy better wake up. Circuit City went tits up chiefly because of Wal-Mart and bad customer service.

    Further on your point. What happened to bringing a concern directly to the company by SPEAKING with someone? Now we have to hope they are listening like SONAR jockeys on a Naval sub?

    So this begs the question. Who's doing it right? Who's not just listening for pings but truly engaging and making believers out of customers?

  • http://newmedialisa.com Lisa Hoffmann

    Yeah, pissing your customers off is probably a bad idea. What are they thinking? I don't pay for premium channels but if I did I'd cancel Starz if this is the kind of advertising they favor. It'd be great if they see this and rethink this tactic.

    Starz people are you listening?

  • http://newmedialisa.com Lisa Hoffmann

    Yeah, pissing your customers off is probably a bad idea. What are they thinking? I don't pay for premium channels but if I did I'd cancel Starz if this is the kind of advertising they favor. It'd be great if they see this and rethink this tactic.

    Starz people are you listening?

  • http://www.yaffetidbitsblog.com Mike McClure

    That's truly horrible marketing. Someone wasn't thinking about the user experience at all. And they should be be tied to a chair with loud Barry Manilow music pumped into their ears for five hours while they're trying ot watch the sweeps week episodes of all their favorite shows. I've learned to glance over at and then ignore the little dancing people or flying objects that appear in the corner of my screen while watching a show. But to block out and talk over the climax of a movie? Bad, bad, bad.

  • http://www.yaffetidbitsblog.com Mike McClure

    That's truly horrible marketing. Someone wasn't thinking about the user experience at all. And they should be be tied to a chair with loud Barry Manilow music pumped into their ears for five hours while they're trying ot watch the sweeps week episodes of all their favorite shows. I've learned to glance over at and then ignore the little dancing people or flying objects that appear in the corner of my screen while watching a show. But to block out and talk over the climax of a movie? Bad, bad, bad.

  • Bone

    Cancelled your subscription yet?

  • Bone

    Cancelled your subscription yet?

  • http://mediaemerging.com Scott Hepburn

    Don't know for sure if Starz is using any tools to listen to blogs or Twitter, Lisa, but they responded to my email within a few hours. That impressed me. I hope they have someone monitoring social media, too.

  • http://mediaemerging.com Scott Hepburn

    Don't know for sure if Starz is using any tools to listen to blogs or Twitter, Lisa, but they responded to my email within a few hours. That impressed me. I hope they have someone monitoring social media, too.

  • http://mediaemerging.com Scott Hepburn

    TBS and TNT are the worst offenders with those little animation pop-overs (advertising people, what are annoying things called, anyway?).

    Looks like this blip with Starz was just a slip up — they're looking into the cause.

  • http://mediaemerging.com Scott Hepburn

    TBS and TNT are the worst offenders with those little animation pop-overs (advertising people, what are annoying things called, anyway?).

    Looks like this blip with Starz was just a slip up — they're looking into the cause.

  • Bone

    My initial comment was more of a reference to how most people would react. You handled it the right way.

    It looked like to me initially that it was what normally runs during the credits. By all accounts this was a technical error.

    Damned computers.

  • Bone

    My initial comment was more of a reference to how most people would react. You handled it the right way.

    It looked like to me initially that it was what normally runs during the credits. By all accounts this was a technical error.

    Damned computers.

  • http://mediaemerging.com Scott Hepburn

    Heh. Ten years ago, the right response would have been for me to speak directly to Starz about it. Today, we blog about it, and the whole world hears us gripe. I guess years and years of unresponsive customer service by big companies has its price.

  • http://mediaemerging.com Scott Hepburn

    Heh. Ten years ago, the right response would have been for me to speak directly to Starz about it. Today, we blog about it, and the whole world hears us gripe. I guess years and years of unresponsive customer service by big companies has its price.

  • Bone

    Yes. And that's the problem I think we will see with so called “listening” on twitter et. al. That it will become the front line customer service interface rather than engaging on a personal level at the point of purchase.

    I said this RE: Beth Harte's experience with Best Buy. It should have never gotten to that level. If so, the customer service environment as a whole is broken. And by that time. I am not a reluctant consumer in your store. I am probably not going to walk in there again. Given the circumstances she described. This, coming from a guy who is hands out “benefit of the doubt” by the shovel-full.

    Best Buy better wake up. Circuit City went tits up chiefly because of Wal-Mart and bad customer service.

    Further on your point. What happened to bringing a concern directly to the company by SPEAKING with someone? Now we have to hope they are listening like SONAR jockeys on a Naval sub?

    So this begs the question. Who's doing it right? Who's not just listening for pings but truly engaging and making believers out of customers?

  • Bone

    Yes. And that's the problem I think we will see with so called “listening” on twitter et. al. That it will become the front line customer service interface rather than engaging on a personal level at the point of purchase.

    I said this RE: Beth Harte's experience with Best Buy. It should have never gotten to that level. If so, the customer service environment as a whole is broken. And by that time. I am not a reluctant consumer in your store. I am probably not going to walk in there again. Given the circumstances she described. This, coming from a guy who is hands out “benefit of the doubt” by the shovel-full.

    Best Buy better wake up. Circuit City went tits up chiefly because of Wal-Mart and bad customer service.

    Further on your point. What happened to bringing a concern directly to the company by SPEAKING with someone? Now we have to hope they are listening like SONAR jockeys on a Naval sub?

    So this begs the question. Who's doing it right? Who's not just listening for pings but truly engaging and making believers out of customers?