Rent or build? Ask Quibi

Is there a better example of the theme of this issue of renting versus building in marketing? Although Quibi owned the land, they didn’t own what they put on it, and it seems they’ve danced their last dance.

As has been widely reported, Quibi, the struggling short-form mobile video startup led by Jeffrey Katzenberg and Meg Whitman, has made such a flourish on the new media dance floor and has failed to find a partner danced its last dance.

There is plenty of coverage raking over why, despite over 1.7bn in investment, people didn’t feel the shapes Quibi was out there throwing.

OK, enough of the dance metaphor.The thing that piqued our interest when the theme of this month’s issue is “Life for Rent” that discusses building a brand on rented land was that it seems that Quibi didn’t own the media assets on their platform.

So, maybe they owned the land but rented what they put on it. According to Variety Magazine:

Actually, Quibi doesn’t own any of the big-budget premium content for which it has shelled out upwards of $100,000 per minute. The company has seven-year licenses on its short-form series; after two years, content owners have the right to assemble the shows and distribute them elsewhere.

And, of course, as we know from Bill Gates and countless other blog posts, content is the king, the queen, the Grand Poobah, or for this publication, the Freddie Mercury of any digital thing whether it’s this little publication or a one-point seven billion-dollar media bet.

There is plenty more on this topic in this issue from our Rockstar CMO’s and writers, about leveraging what you rent, what you build and own. But, it seems Quibi is a good lesson; better to own than to rent.

This artwork was created with the help of Artificial Intelligence. Create your own AI-generated artworks using NightCafe Creator.

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Author

Ian Truscott

Not a rock star, but Ian is a 3 x CMO, a trusted advisor and Chief Bottle Washer at Rockstar CMO, who applies his experience to create ART (Awareness, Revenue and Trust) for B2B companies. Ian brings over two decades of marketing leadership experience to Rockstar CMO, he also a former techie, product marketer, CTO, agency guy and industry analyst.

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