Best Buy Shifts Focus from Offering Expertise to Aiding Discovery
Best Buy has unveiled a sweeping set of changes to its brand identity and strategy that include new branding and a new holographic spokes “person,” as well as tech and store experience enhancements.
“Our customers are at the heart of all we do, and the role they want us to play in their lives and with technology has evolved,” explained the retailer in a statement. “They don’t always need us to be the expert anymore. Customers are more familiar with technology, do a tremendous amount of research on their own and know we will be there with our expertise when they need it. Today, they want us to play a bigger role in helping them discover new technology, how it can elevate their lives and the extraordinary things it can do for them.”
New Identity
Best Buy plans to zero in on the possibilities offered by tech: “The world of discovery we’re building is centered on asking our customers, ‘What if?’” reads the company statement. “In finding the answer, we’re introducing a new tagline: ‘Imagine that.’ This simple but powerful question is where all new ideas and possibilities come from and leads to that exact moment when you realize how technology can unlock a little magic in ways you didn’t expect.”
Along with the tagline, Best Buy’s branding will get a refresh with a new “modern look and feel” that will be phased in over time. The brand’s iconic blue and yellow color palette will remain at the core, but will be supplemented by “hints of magenta, teal and red.”
New Store Experiences
Over the summer and this fall, Best Buy will introduce more experiential spaces in hundreds of stores that showcase the latest tech from brands including GoPro, Tesla, Lovesac and Starlink.
New dedicated associate teams also will be added in the computing, appliance and home theater sections, where customers indicated they want more support.
New Spokes “Person”
The company has introduced its new spokesperson, “Gram,” who takes the form of a hologram, in a light-hearted ad that debates what the correct terminology is for a holographic spokesperson. And this is just the beginning for Gram, who will now become a “familiar character” in Best Buy ads, including the company’s back-to-school campaign.
New Tech Features
The larger brand refresh follows a robust series of updates to the Best Buy app designed to create a more personalized shopping experience. For example, customers can now choose to receive personalized alerts when a product they’ve had their eye on goes on sale or when exclusive member deals go live.
And through the company’s previously announced partnership with Google Cloud, Best Buy is helping both customers and employees access enhanced tech support experiences, including a Gen AI-powered virtual assistant.
New Informational Content
Best Buy also is creating a new lineup of video content focused on innovators, new products, discovery, tech tips, buying guides and more. More than 500 videos will be rolled out by the end of the year on the Best Buy YouTube channel, the Best Buy app and BestBuy.com — 3X the number of videos released in 2023.
The company also highlighted its new partnership with CNET as an opportunity “to integrate unbiased editorial advice from CNET’s experts throughout every stage of the customer shopping journey across Best Buy channels.”
“We’re embracing this change, and we’re excited about it because we know it’s where our customers want us to go,” said Jennie Weber, Chief Marketing Officer of Best Buy in a statement. “This new world of discovery is personal to every customer, their passions and the moments in life that matter most. They want technology to level up their lives — to help them do more of what they love — and there’s no one more passionate and better positioned to do that than Best Buy.”
