On today’s InsidePR, Martin Waxman, Joe Thornley, and I discuss how Netflix screwed up in Canada. There were a few American news items about it, but I didn’t realize the severity of the issue until they had me read some Canadian stories about it.

The gist of it is that Netflix hired PR and marketing firms to help them launch in Canada. Reasonable, right? But one of the firms (and we’re hearing that it was not the PR firm) hired actors to pretend they were Netflix customers. These “customers” roamed the streets and did interviews with media, as if they were truly excited about the brand’s availability in the country. Of course, the media discovered these people were actors and Netflix had to do damage control, as well as issue this apology. Not fun when you’re launching a new service and you end up in crisis mode. (more…)