Jim Keys, CEO of Blockbuster at Forrester Consumer Conference

Background was at 7 Eleven before he went to Blockbuster. I see Blockbuster, I see 5000 stores domestically and 8000 stores worldwide as a springboard to great opportunity.

What do 7 Eleven and Blockbuster have in common?
They both started in Dallas, Texas
Both created worldwide brands
Both expanded to big retail chains (7 Eleven now has 45,000 stores). In 1985, everyone thought it was irrelevant. We had defined ourselves for the blue collar male.. Beef Jerky, beer, etc.

I went to Japan to our licensee, and discovered that they were selling Sushi. This terrified me. We had trouble getting hot dogs right.. But they realized that convenient fresh food was what people wanted, and with techology (past sales + weather) you could predict how much fresh food you'd need.

7-11 was chapter 11 in 1991. We pulled the brand out. We built into it an obsession with change. Every week, there are 50 new items that are available to the store to introduce to the customer.

Blockbuster made the convenience of VHS tapes to the consumer. But by 2007, when I arrived, the company was on a trajectory that was very dangerous. What we did was to inject change into the system. To recognize that the only constant in retail is different.