Indie titles streamlined for Best Buy
First Look, Sony DADC start joint manufacturing/distribution venture
By Susanne Ault -- Video Business, 6/23/2009
JUNE 23 | PHYSICAL: LOS ANGELES—First Look Studios and Sony DADC have created a joint manufacturing/distribution venture, Millennium Media Services, to help streamline DVD and Blu-ray Disc product to Best Buy.
Launched in March, MMS has signed 10 label clients, including niche specialist MPI and anime supplier Bandai, to oversee their entire supply chain to Best Buy. The goal is to help small companies gain a direct sales relationship with Best Buy that they might not have enjoyed otherwise. Also, Best Buy improves operational efficiencies by working with fewer vendors through MMS’s one-stop approach.
MMS will consolidate its clients’ individual product pitches into one regular conversation with Best Buy merchandising executives.
Other clients MMS represents include Madacy and First Look Studios.
MMS is similar to existing wholesalers such as VPD or Ingram but additionally offers physical replication and authoring with its Sony DADC partnership.
Through much of this year, Best Buy has been looking to reduce costs by slimming the number of vendors with which it does business. However, Best Buy wants to keep indie product on shelves and believes MMS can efficiently keep small supplier products featured.
“This process lets us hear about a wide variety of titles from one place,” Best Buy merchandiser Aimee Nelson said. “We can create more endcaps and have more locations for [related titles] rather than a onesy/twosy [weaker] approach.”
According to MMS executives, all products are pitched with equal emphasis, even though it is corporately aligned with First Look.
Marie O’Reilly, MMS senior VP, believes clients are advancing their Best Buy business being under this new consolidated relationship.
“Previously, Madacy would speak about their products to Best Buy on a quarterly basis, and now we speak about Madacy on a monthly basis,” said O’Reilly. “We can get clients more shelf space. They didn’t have this velocity of conversations before.”
