Working at Fox as the President of International Home Entertainment, Jeff set a goal to take his division from the decline when he came in, to become the number one video seller on the market. This was no small feat so Jeff got straight to work reorganizing the entire division. Then he distributed movie titles that showed potential in DVD sales. Fox experienced such success through his DVD distribution that these titles became classics.
Movies like Braveheart and Independence Day that are now household names were huge wins for Fox. Some titles even got reborn thanks to Jeff’s work in distribution, Star Wars was one of them.
When Jeff approached Lucasfilms to repackage Star Wars, it was a trilogy that had seen its heyday. Lucasfilms was focused on gaming and considered the trilogy to be done. After Jeff and his team targeted Star Wars at a new generation, Lucasfilms saw its value and decided to finish the series. The initial campaign sold with amazing revenue, and a year later they re-released the trilogy with a trailer for Episode I: Phantom Menace, which sold with even higher numbers.
However, this didn’t stop with movies; Jeff recognized that TV shows had the same potential given the right market. He took X-Files to Japan and made it the top rented title for 3 years in a row. After a while the series was put on air and created a cycle of Japanese viewers tuning into the current season on TV and renting the previous season on DVD.
It wasn’t just picking winners, for this model to work so well Jeff and his team activated marketing campaigns everywhere they went. Seeing X-wings and TIE fighters in local parks from London to Tokyo generated the frenzy for Star Wars that drove the huge sales they achieved. For Independence Day they created a 350-foot balloon alien destroyer to float down onto cities.
Titles that were seen as old and stagnant turned out to be huge sources of revenue, creating value where there was none. Using a process of restoring, repackaging, and direct marketing, Jeff’s division introduced old movies to new generations making it a massive success.
