Bye Bye Blockbuster

I won my first advertising award around fifteen years ago.

It was for Blockbuster.

Actually it was for Blockbuster Music. Their short lived musical megastore.

Today I was reading about the imminent closure of Blockbuster.

I haven’t been in a Blockbuster store for ages so I doubt I’ll miss them.

But it got me thinking about the impact of digital on their business.

Back in 1995 Blockbuster music sold CDs and lots of them.

And Blockbuster Video rented videos by the bucketload. So much so that it looked like cinemas were in trouble.

Fast forward to 2010 and cinemas seem to be doing okay.

But videos are long gone and CDs will join them very soon.

Not to mention Blockbuster stores.

That is an astonishing amount of change in just fifteen years.

And it makes my award winning work for Blockbuster Music look like something from the Don Draper era.