Barry Judge // Updates from the CMO of Best Buy

March 4, 2011: Updated with video

If we had a theme for the last couple of weeks in and around my office at Best Buy, it would be “big stages.”

Our first entry into the annual Super Bowl commercial sweepstakes is well documented – and, I should add, a whopping success. Our spot featuring Best Buy’s new Buy Back program, Ozzy Osbourne and Justin Bieber was the second most “re-watched” ad according to TiVo, and the third most watched video on YouTube last week.

As CMO of a Fortune 50 company, I have opportunities to speak to audiences of all shapes and sizes, and I’ve grown pretty comfortable with the role. But every once in a while, an engagement pops up that makes me wonder what I was thinking when I agreed to accept a spot at the podium.  Read more...

One of the reasons I love the Consumer Electronics business is that the products we sell are in a constant state of upgrade.  I have been in the business for about a decade.  The driver businesses at that time were 400 pound tube TVs, stationary Desktop PCs, landline phones, VCRs, Walkman disk players and, of course, shiny CD disks and VHS tapes. Wow, detailing the list of stuff we used to sell just 10 years ago makes my point. Every product category, literally, has been completely remade. Throw the web, mobile web and social networking, to name just a few disruptive events, on top and its easy to project that the pace of product change will only accelerate. It’s an exciting industry.  Read more...

As I mentioned a couple posts ago, this time around the blogosphere I am going to talk about a few things other than business and Best Buy. My stuff will still overwhelmingly be that but I want to get into some other stuff that I just feel like telling people about. If you just want the business stuff, I guess, just skip these occasional off main topic musings. So here goes.  Read more...

There is much discussion in the press this time of year regarding the merits of running a Super Bowl ad. The nay-sayers argue that TV is increasingly irrelevant, the costs are ridiculous, running a Groupon coupon will generate more new users and what’s more one can just go on social media and create buzz for free. At times, I think I have said all those same things and when I did felt very smart about our marketing strategy and happy to be entertained by all the other foolish marketers who ponied up for the game.
Since we are running our first ever Super Bowl ad that includes Justin Bieber, Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne no less, then, in the famous words of Ricky Ricardo I sure have some “splaining” to do.
My thinking has changed for a few reasons. First, as our media channels have gotten exponentially more fragmented, TV, especially live TV (sports, award programming etc), is one of the few stages in which we can talk to a large audience. Second, the Super Bowl is the biggest of stages. For us to make this kind of stage work, we needed to have something very important to say. This year, we have something new, important and differentiating to say, worthy we thought, of the bigness that is the Super Bowl. Third, we wanted to use this stage to highlight parts of our brand heritage that we have moved away from in recent years, our love of the Entertainment we sell and the fun we all have in consuming it. Finally and perhaps most importantly, I came to realize much more clearly how the Super Bowl platform done well could create a very impactful social campaign that could then create interest far beyond the game itself.
As for creative, Super Bowl ads are first and foremost about entertainment value so that did get us thinking about using celebrities which we have rarely used in the past. However, we truly ended up using Justin, Ozzy and Sharon because we thought they personified the main idea we are trying to convey in the spot despite what this USA today writer speculated (http://tinyurl.com/4npgbp8).
The idea launches on the Super Bowl so I am not going to spill it here. I know it’s a big bet. For us to run it our key business leaders, including our CEO, had to be all-in. You can just imagine how many people are interested in getting a peak at our creative. We feel good about the reasons we decided to go all-in to the big game this year. After the champion gets the trophy on Feb 6th we will have a pretty good idea as to whether the bet will pay off. In the meantime, I am interested in how others think about using the Super Bowl as a marketing platform.
Oh, and I will post the spot and our plans for leveraging the social space once the ad has run on Feb 6th.

This post is my re-emergence into the longer form public social space. I have thought for a while about whether I wanted to start writing again and have decided that for me the time invested is well worth the personal and business related benefits that come from being public. This time around I have decided I am going to have a better balance of business and personal interests and not be so focused on Best Buy only issues. While Best Buy will still be a major focus of what I write about, I want to explore other topics of interests that will hopefully get me connected to other people that have passion and expertise on those topics.
Why did I disappear? Well I didn’t really, other interests just began taking up more of my time. A lot changed for me at Best Buy during my year away. I became Global CMO for real (was really only that on paper) and that took me to many continents and new issues. To illustrate the point, I made 5 Asia trips, 5 Europe trips and was in Mexico and Canada frequently as well. All in all, I did over 200,000 miles last year. Very rewarding personally and professionally so I am very glad I did it. Marketing in China is a real eye opening experience. Being the challenger brand in Europe and Mexico with very tight start like budgets caused me to relearn marketing skills that I hadn’t touched since my days a decade earlier at Starbuck’s knock off, Caribou Coffee, which was also a start up at the time.
But I have come to realize that the travel is largely an excuse. In thinking through why I went radio silent, I would have to say it was for really two other main reasons. The first is that our business has been much tougher this year that it was in 2009. In 2009, we were one of the few retailers that had a very strong year, largely a result of us aggressively taking most of the available Circuit City market share that became available when they went dark. In 2010 we didn’t have the same advantages and were faced with the additional challenges of a down TV market and the resulting disruption caused by the Ipad which we both benefitted (we sell ipads) and were negatively impacted (IPad cannibalized other forms of consumer CE spending). People that know me are well aware that I wear the business on my sleeve and our challenges made me less inclined to write. In retrospect that was a mistake as this blog was always a great source of debate in and outside of the company. I think what got me really thinking about it was a few days ago when I was talking to the person that heads up our PR group and she mentioned that people miss me out there talking in my blog. That hit me hard.
The other reason I stopped is that writing a blog is hard work. You have to be disciplined, set aside the time and do your writing consistently, even when you don’t totally feel like it. It’s a little bit like working out for me, when I am in a good groove I get the sweat in. I have decided to dedicate myself again and am quite looking forward to it.
So here goes. I am back. That was the quote Michael Jordan used after he returned from his baseball hiatus in the mid 1990s. I remember it well as I worked at Gatorade at the time, Michael was the single biggest line item in our budget and I was a big Bulls fan. He won 3 titles after that. I hope to have some success both here and in general as well.
Next post which will come very soon will be about our decision to invest in our first ever Super Bowl ad which airs in the 3rd quarter of the big game Feb 6th.

Business Week just posted an article on Best Buy’s business strategy. I am interested in hearing comments on what people think about Business Week’s take on the article. The article is posted at the following link, http://tinyurl.com/yaokons. I have also posted it below.  Read more...

If you’ve visited a Best Buy store in the past few weeks, you may have noticed a logo next to certain items designating them as an @15 Gift. I’ve mentioned @15 before, but am particularly proud of how Best Buy’s philanthropic platform is inviting our customers to partner with us, benefiting teens in our communities this holiday season.

Here’s how it works: every time a customer buys a product designated as an @15 Gift during the months of November and December, a portion of the sale will be donated by the manufacturer to the @15 FundTM within the Best Buy’s Children Foundation. Then teens are empowered to direct the $1 million fund to non-profits supporting other teens in our communities through http://www.at15.com/.  Read more...

Our plan this Holiday focuses on executing very well our “Price Plus,” strategy. ” Price Plus” is shorthand for great prices plus providing the best help before and during the shopping process and then after you buy something via all our touch points in our stores, web sites and call centers. We know that delivering value in this manner is very appealing to consumers (see American Consumer Institute study on this at http://tinyurl.com/yhuu23p), and if we do it well, customers will be happy and so will we.

As I mentioned in the Part 1, we will be communicating our “Buyer Be Happy,” promise across both traditional TV and print mediums as well as making much more extensive use of email, digital, mobile and social mediums than we have in the past. The creative backdrop for our communication is our people as it has been for the past while. In all of our communication we will be providing helpful gift giving advice featuring the real people that work in our stores. This explosion in mediums has enabled us to do a lot of different things this year, particularly in using video on the web and in building gifting applications for Facebook and our Mobile platforms.  Read more...

You may be aware that the reference to the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Ahda in our 11/22 Best Buy Sunday newspaper insert  (for U.S. Best Buy stores) has spurred a number of conversations in the blogosphere and on Best Buy’s Facebook site. We’ve also seen an increase in the volume of calls and e-mails to Enterprise Customer Care.

In light of this, I wanted to make sure people understand our strategy related to holiday greetings.

First and foremost, Best Buy is committed to living our values and creating an inclusive environment for customers and employees. Therefore, as we continue striving to better understand our customers in order meet their unique needs, it’s only natural that we would look for ways to communicate to them about the things that are important in their lives. At this time of year, that means acknowledging the various holidays in which gifts traditionally are exchanged.  Read more...