It looks like “House of Cards” has paid off for Netflix.

The streaming service added 2 million subscribers with that ground-breaking political series that stars Kevin Spacey.  Quite a leap from the days when Netflix was being outflanked by its competition.

It also marks a change in how Netflix will be perceived. Its brand previously was about a business model. Now its content will draw customers.

This has happened before.

Remember when TLC was The Learning Channel? Now it features shows such as “The World’s Worst Tattoos,” which are hardly educational.  Broader offerings spurred the network to simply rebrand itself as TLC.

And AMC, which a few years ago was known for airing seemingly non-stop “Die Hard” movies, now pulls in massive viewership with its gritty series lineups that include “The Walking Dead” and “Breaking Bad.” As a result, AMC’s tagline is  “Something More.”

In each instance, content drove the brand.  With “House of Cards” and other promising shows in production, look for Netflix’s brand to transform into something new.

Netflix is close, but not there yet.

Back in 2011 the king of streaming video outbid both HBO and Showtime to claim the series House Of Cards, which aired last week. The show is a gritty and well-cast drama about the nuances of politics. Produced by and starring Kevin Spacey, it’s flavored with greed, sex and betrayal and is instantly entertaining.

House of Cards would fit snugly into an HBO or Showtime lineup, which is exactly what Netflix wanted. Says Ted Sarandos, the chief content director of Netflix: “[this is the] next chapter of TV/Internet content.”

Sarandos’ goal: to make Netflix “the next HBO.”

While Netflix is smart to broaden its horizons, the desire to be the next HBO is misplaced.

Why?

The user experience on Netflix continues to be underwhelming.

Instead of looking hungrily at HBO, Netflix would be better off focusing on what makes it different and better — such as being able to offer an entirely new series all at once. These innovations should be celebrated, and they aren’t. Currently, House of Cards lacks any preview or commercial exposure to entice viewers and isn’t even highlighted on the site. Instead, it’s lumped in the “New TV” scroll along with 150 different options.

Is this how to hype a new $100 million show?

What’s more, Netflix would be wise to call its content something other than an “original series.” This banal term connotes weekly, episodic programming. But Netflix isn’t playing that kind of viewing game. Ars Technica, for example, defined House of Cards as a “thirteen-hour movie”, a description that is much more distinctive and empowering.

Little changes would make a big difference. Instead, Netflix is overly worried about its status and hanging with HBO.

Come on Netflix, if you truly want to revamp your reputation, make the necessary changes to succeed.

It seems that Reed Hastings, CEO of Netflix, is quietly in talks with cable companies in a possible attempt to add the Netflix service as an add-on to cable. The move, which would give Netflix greater reach and would give cable providers an additional bundling element in their line-up, might appear to be a win-win on paper. But the effect on the Netflix brand would not be a positive – nor is it the right step in aligning with the future of delivering content.

In any discussion I have had with friends and colleagues, I have yet to find someone who speaks highly of their cable service. The service is never great, the prices are too high, you are not able to pay only for the content you want and you have little control. In addition, cable represents the “middle man” between the creator of content and us. With streaming video (HBO GO, any one?), cable companies are nearing extinction.

Netflix was wise when it initially focused on DVDs and it was even wiser when it made the transition to instant streaming.

The biggest hurdle for Netflix is that, even though there is a lot of content it streams, the content is too incomplete. You still need to supplement Netflix with cable, satellite or another streaming service like Hulu. Its focus should be on closing this gap, not bridging it. When I go to Best Buy, I often have a hard time killing time browsing. I used to be able to that with ease. Now, though, there is just a lot of obsolete space. I have no interest in browsing the CD collection or DVD collection, which consumes most of the middle of its stores. I have seen the future in digital and have no use for hard copies anymore. This is my feeling about cable. I have tasted instant streaming, be it ESPN3, Netflix, Hulu, or iTunes, and streaming tastes oh so much better.

Apple famously is quick to do away with outdated technology before the rest of the industry (removing the diskette drive, adopting USB, avoiding Flash).  It always stays current and ahead of the curve because it is the one making the curve. (In Walter Isaacson’s book, Steve Jobs, Jobs said consumers don’t know what they want next until they have it.) Netflix must do the same. I don’t want to have another reason to remain with my cable provider. I want someone to give me a way out.

With the advent of smart TVs, game consoles, and set-top boxes, all connecting to streaming services, Netflix‘s ability to reach the market will continue to sufficiently expand without having to align with cable providers. If you lay with dogs, you will wake up with fleas. Remember this Netflix, because my cable provider is covered in them.

Well, that was certainty interesting. Netflix CEO Reed Hastings announced today that Qwikster, the proposed DVD-delivery offshoot of Netflix, is no longer.

In a statement emailed to subscribers, Hastings begins with: “It is clear that for many of our members two websites would make things more difficult, so we are going to keep Netflix as one place to go for streaming and DVDs.”

As a subscriber, I’m happy with this, which I hope is the final result. I like to do both (stream, rent) and I was confused over how the process would work once Qwikster was live.

There are a few lessons to be learned from this, however. For one thing, Hastings and Netflix have finally understood that simple is always best. The reason for the power of simplicity is because complexity adds barriers to use and adoption. It’s the reason why, for example, some of the most used websites, such as Facebook, are simple and easy to use – and why Facebook users got angry when Facebook overcomplicated matters.

The other lesson is that Netflix is struggling to maintain its market leadership because its brand has been based strictly on a process, rather than an emotional connection. So, when the process got confusing, the brand got rejected.

The market in which Netflix competes is becoming more and more competitive as competitors copy Netflix’s process. Blockbuster, once dead, will be resurrected by DirecTV in a model that copies Netflix. Rumors are also growing that this is an area in which Apple wants to gain a stronger foothold and may also copy Netflix’s process through Apple TV to do it.

Netflix triggered this Netflix/Qwikster model after customers complained of price hikes. Netflix failed to see that it could offer separate plans under one brand and one website until now. (Though, the brand guy in me was very interested in what Qwikster was going to look like.)

Give it up to Netflix for realizing its mistake and landing where it should. Now, it needs to take the next step in becoming emotionally important to customers so that, when mistakes are made, they are forgotten or forgiven, and any equity it has lost during this latest fiasco can be overcome.

A letter sent Sunday evening by Netflix’s CEO Reed Hastings begins with an apology, followed by an explanation of the future of Netflix. Or should I say, the future of Netflix and the beginning of Qwikster.

The current shape of Netflix and its future uncertainty is in fact a case study in what happens if companies only focus on the business of their business, and never develop the business of their brand.

In the letter, Hastings writes, “So we realized that streaming and DVD by mail are really becoming two different businesses, with very different cost structures, that need to be marketed differently, and we need to let each grow and operate independently.”

The idea that the two services exist in a realm so separate from one another that they warrant two separate companies is only reinforced because Netflix has never told us what its brand represents and who as consumers we were when we chose Netflix.

The focus of Netflix has always focused to heavily on its process. Its business is streaming movies and sending DVDs by mail. But its brand could have represented, and could still represent, much more than that. The power of brand is that brand creates the deeper level by which products and services become connected. Netflix DVD and Netflix streaming did not work together because Netflix never told us the “why.”

Take Apple, for example, and its long-running “Think Different” campaign. It was not about a technology. It was about its brand. Apple even changed its name to Apple Inc from Apple Computers to avoid limiting itself by the the products it could sell. Why be limited in the products you can offer if brand permissions can allow for so much more? Netflix has never recognized this and it is why, if you ask someone what the brand of Netflix represents, the response is rarely more than “movies” or “DVDs.” If you represent “movies” or “DVDs” than you have diminished your value to the consumer to the likes of Vudu, Hulu, Amazon, Crackle, Redbox or any other distributor of “movies” and “DVDs”.

The recent split by Netflix is not the solution to the problem. In fact, if past performance dictates future results, all Netflix has accomplished is creating more market confusion and hurdles for preference with two companies lacking brand instead of one.

I always liked Netlfix, primarily for its streaming. But, like most first movers of a technology, if value is created simply because of that technology, then the value is lost when the competition arrives.

Again, I reference Apple and its iPad. Value for the iPad was built through the Apple brand. It is why tablet sales outside of the iPad have been failures in comparison and why if you buy a tablet you either buy an “iPad” or a “tablet”.

Hastings’s letter closes, “Both the Qwikster and Netflix teams will work hard to regain your trust. We know it will not be overnight. Actions speak louder than words. But words help people to understand actions.”  

The fastest way to gain that trust is talking about what is emotionally intensive to consumers. For anything Netflix says to be resonate, it means it has to be said by the brand itself.

It’s a little too late for Blockbuster, I’m afraid. News that it will have kiosks at Sheetz convenience stores is an obvious attempt to cut into the market share of Redbox – but that’s not where the most market share lies.

Retailers like Blockbuster and f.ye. have found themselves with plenty of real estate property but not enough customers to justify it. Their stores have become increasingly empty and both are, in fact, reducing the size of their physical imprint. The kiosks are simply a way to make better use of a footprint.

Sound strategy, right? Maybe in the short term, although even then it’s shaky. It’s certainly not sound strategy in the long term.

A retailer like f.y.e. is failing because consumers don’t buy DVDs or CDs anymore. When they do rent them, they do it through other means: On Demand, Netflix, iTunes and even free downloading from places such as Hulu. That is, they download it straight to their TVs or computers.

DVD rental and purchasing is simply a dying model. Technology has reached the point in which consumers have more access – and control – to entertainment content than ever before.

What makes it doubly downcast for Blockbuster is that their brand is outdated. Its brand means archaic to consumers and it feels like a dying brand to them. Blockbuster was late to the downloading industry and getting into the game (as it has now) has been a losing effort because its brand doesn’t have permission to play. Downloading rentals from Blockbuster feels like taking fashion advice from your grandmother.

Kiosks are barely a stop-gap. Once that bump shrinks, Blockbuster will be looking for a new way. A brand that resonates with those who have already moved past Blockbuster is what’s really needed.