Redbox Instant by Verizon Seeks Feedback Through Sweepstakes Promo
Consumers who sign up for a one-month beta trial of the Redbox Instant by Verizon service might well be underwhelmed by the offerings of the $8-per month subscription plan, judging from our early experience testing the service’s offerings. The subscription service includes “access to thousands of popular movie titles,” according to its website. A subscription also includes rental of four DVD titles a month from a Redbox kiosk, but it does not include free access to titles available for rental or purchase, which we found to be a more desirable selection of movies.
Movies available via subscription included older titles such as On the Waterfront, Manhattan, Paper Lion and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and more recent movies and concert videos such as Biebermania, Winter’s Bone, True Grit, and Hotel Rwanda. Most of the content comprised movies we weren’t familiar with and wouldn’t likely choose including Too Fat for Forty, Trailer Park Boys, And You Thought Your Parents Were Weird, Godzilla Final Wars, Zombie Nation and Crude Impact. What started as a list of 161 titles Tuesday morning expanded to more than we could count easily by early afternoon, however, indicating the library is expanding at a quick clip. Our first impression was that we doubted we would find enough titles we wanted to view in a month to make the $8 fee seem like a good value. The four freebies from a kiosk don’t hold much attraction for viewers who want the instant gratification of streaming a movie and don’t want to trek to a kiosk.
We found more titles that were familiar and appealing in the rental/purchase bin at Redboxinstant.com. Older titles included Apocalypse Now, The Graduate, Jaws and Footloose, and newer titles included Salmon Fishing in Yemen, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, Hugo and Along Came a Spider. While there was plenty of “filler” content in the rent/buy section, too, we could imagine finding enough there each month to make a subscription worthwhile; these titles, though, start at 99 cents and aren’t all available in all versions. The least expensive rental we found was $2.99.
According to the website, licensing restrictions prohibit users from buying movies directly from Redbox Instant by Verizon using an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch app. The site instructs viewers to use a Mac or PC to make purchases through the website and “you can then enjoy them on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch.” We purchased the film The Squid and the Whale for $9.99 and were immediately able to download it onto an iPad. A customer service rep told us only subscribers could purchase movies, although the FAQ section of the website says consumers can rent and buy movies and reserve discs without subscribing.
Rental and purchase options vary widely from title to title, we found. Midnight in Paris and Transformers: Dark of the Moon were available for purchase only for $11.99 in SD, while The King’s Speech was a purchase-only title for $16.99 in SD and $19.99 in HD. Paul Blart: Mall Cop was available for purchase only for $9.99 in SD, while kids’ movie Thomas & Friends: James Learns a Lesson was available as a rental for $2.99 and an SD purchase for $9.99, according to the site. Little Fockers was available as a rental for $2.99, an HD rental for $3.99 and an SD purchase for $9.99, according to the site. Most titles we checked on Tuesday were purchase-only, not rentals. Once a title is rented, users have 30 days to view it and once they begin viewing, they have 24 hours to view it, the site said.
Devices compatible with Redbox Instant by Verizon at launch include iPhone, iPod touch, iPad Mini and iPads, all running iOS 5 or higher, as well as PCs and Macs and Android devices available through Google Play running Android 2.3, according to redboxinstant.com. “Pick an Android, iPhone, tablet, or computer, and you can probably enjoy Redbox Instant on it,” the site said, adding that the service is adding new devices “all the time.” We selected Lennon: All You Need Is Love from the subscription movie list and it began streaming without a hitch.
After sending out the initial free one-month trial offer Monday to consumers who had signed up for a beta account, Redbox Instant by Verizon followed up with an offer to join the “Redhead Nation” on Tuesday. We were offered a chance to win “fun movies, fun games and freakin awesome prizes” in a sweepstakes designed to bring in user feedback and raise publicity. Approximate retail value of the prizes, including promo codes, 10 Xbox 360 systems, DVDs, air fresheners, bumper stickers and t-shirts, is $109,920, according to the Redhead Nation Loyalty Program’s terms and conditions page.
Participants who collect 500 or more points during the period that started Dec. 26 and runs through Jan. 31 will qualify to redeem one of the prizes listed, according to the site. But we received news of the three-week-old promotion only on Tuesday. Grand prize is a Gears of War 3 specialty edition Xbox 360, one year of Microsoft Gold Live membership, and an American Express gift card worth $100, good toward a one-year subscription for Redbox Instant by Verizon, the site said. Points are awarded for renting a disc at a kiosk, logging in to the website, answering questions about the service, posting comments, playing games and advertising the service by posting Redhead Nation to a Facebook profile, the sweepstakes terms said.