Netflix’s Most Recent Social Media PR Debacle: Meet Jason Castillo

Pretty much all of the recent news surrounding Netflix has been bad. They have increased the price for subscribers to both of their services from $9.99 a month to $15.99 a month. They are imposing a limit on the amount of content users can simultaneously stream. They are also facing harsh negotiation deals from major distributors looking to make more money off of the media they provide. After separating the two services, Netflix for streaming videos and Qwikster for by mail DVDs, the PR department will be struggling to acquire the Twitter handle from Jason Castillo.

Jason Castillo’s Twitter account doesn’t give a good deal of personal information about the man. His bio is blank and he does not have a real picture of himself. What we can gather from his account is that he loves to smoke marijuana, has a penchant for misspelling profanity laden messages, and enjoys Sesame Street character Elmo. He likes to blend all of these things together and feature an image of the beloved childhood hero “stoned” and smoking a joint.

The Qwikster Twitter handle is not a good start for Netflix’s new offshoot. Many people who are interested in the service have probably already seen this profile and even started following it in hopes of getting the latest information straight from the company. Any smart Twitter user will be able to discern this as an unofficial account, but at a time when saving face is a vital part of the company’s mission.

Netflix is hoping to make their mail service and streaming service (the real cash cow) two separate companies in order to ween customers off the expensive shipping costs. With mobile devices equipped with ip address geolocation and GPS technology, they can send advertisements to users based on location. In order to keep customers who still rely on the mailing service a little more satisfied, Qwikster will soon offer video games through their service.

It’s almost as if Netflix did not do any homework while they were renaming their mail service to Qwikster. Instead of a picture of Elmo smoking a marijuana cigarette, Jason Castillo should change his Twitter profile pic to a big dollar sign.