Monday, December 28, 2015

Columbia House - Then & Now

With Columbia House in the news lately, announcing their vinyl initiative (details below) - I was reminded of this film I wanted to share about the height of their CD business!  What a superb look into a bygone world.

"Filmmaker Chris Wilcha captured what it was like working at Columbia House during this boom time in a low-key, first-person documentary called The Target Shoots First. Wilcha—who started off in the marketing department as an assistant product manager and was soon promoted to product manager—took a camcorder to work and captured the absurdity and mundanity of the company at that moment in time. He filmed scenes not just in the company’s New York offices, but also at the massive Terre Haute, Indiana, manufacturing, customer service, and distribution center (which employed 3,300 people in 1996) as well as an amusing Aerosmith in-store appearance and a trade-show rendezvous with David Hasselhoff."

(Via Four Columbia House insiders explain the shady math behind “8 CDs for a penny” · Expert Witness · The A.V. Club.)

 And then going forward… 

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"To put it mildly, Columbia House has seen better days. The mail-order service went bankrupt this summer, and it's hard to see the allure of regularly buying movie discs when downloads and streaming are within easy reach. The company thinks it has an answer, however: it's restarting the Columbia House Record Club with a focus on vinyl records. It's betting that the resurgence of the old format and the popularity of subscription services (think Birchbox or Lootcrate) will draw in a younger audience. Columbia hasn't nailed down the launch details yet, but it'd return to the outlet's roots with membership and steep discounts."

(Via Columbia House hopes you'll come back for vinyl records.)

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