In marketing, we’re doing our job when we reach people at the right time in the right place with the right experience and message. As I talk about in my The Future is Digital blog and video, digital enables people to get information on their own terms: when, where, how, and what they want. It’s no longer enough to just say something; you have to let people experience it and share it with the people that they trust.
Our Musical Instruments department (in about 100 stores nationwide) is all about Experience. Everything is plugged in and ready to play. The staff is friendly, knowledgeable, and approachable. We carry professional grade gear from brands like Fender, Marshall, Roland, Yamaha, and Drum Workshop. We are working on building awareness of our Musical Instruments department, but more importantly, building credibility and authenticity. We hope to inspire people. But how do you take that feeling and translate it to a digital landscape?
Digital allows us to connect with our customers in new and exciting ways, and our digital experience is meant to tap into that potential. Later this summer, we want our customers to create “dream rigs” from our inventory and share them with their friends on the social platforms they use. We will be using the power of digital to let our employees, musicians from communities around the country, and our customers share their passion for music and their insights. Instead of just telling people that we have these great instruments, we want to show them, and help them experience them in the digital space in unique ways that go beyond catalogs of products. We are looking forward to launching these digital experiences this summer.
As has become my custom to post “rough cut” TV executions for feedback, I am posting a link to a demo that was built by my team for a moderator led Usability Study. As such, the experience is incomplete and limited to one click through path – but I am hopeful you will see where we are headed and provide feedback. Employee, musician, and customer perspectives help us tell the Musical Instruments story … I have included a video at the end of the demo that I would appreciate your feedback on as well.
http://storage.bestbuy.com/ads/BBYMI/MainV.swf
Demo instructions:
* Click anywhere on initial screen
* Click on Instruments, then Keyboards
* Click anywhere (to get to the instrument details card)
* Click on the M-Audio pop up (see the back of the card)
* Click on the M-Audio pop up (see the rig)
* Click anywhere (to get to the video)
“The staff is friendly, knowledgeable, and approachable.”
No, they are not. In fact, I just came back from your Best Buy located near Redlands, CA. Half of them were totally clueless about locking tuners, and NONE of them knew the difference between active and passive pickups. One especially dull man couldn’t tell me whether or not a pickup was single-coil, or double-coil, and could not tell me whether or not it was supposed to be wired in phase or out of phase.
None of them knew how a wah pedal actually works, nor how a humbucker achieves the hum-bucking effect. The one guy trying to sell me a guitar couldn’t even demonstrate a basic A chord.
Seriously, where do you find these people? What sort of test are you using to weed out undesirable candidates? Whatever it is, it certainly needs major tweaking.
Alex, it sounds like you had a bad experience, which is unfortunate. As a manager of one of our Chicagoland instrument stores, I take a lot of pride in our team’s ability to give customers a relaxed and fun haven for trying out musical gear. My store has been open one year this week and we are learning more and more every day. Also, please remember, our associates aren’t divided into instrument categories like other large music shops – we need to know about guitar, drums, keys, pro-audio, home recording, DJ etc. While the associate helping you out may not have known every detail about the guitar in question, he probably could have put together a great home recording rig for you, or told you everything there is to know about DW drums. Point being, we’re musicians (I was in a touring major-label rock band for 15 years), we’re passionate about this and we are working very hard to do this right.
Well, I hope it leads to a more cohesive selection of product for our 900 non-MI stores, because our selection is awful; we can’t appeal to anyone. Three kinds of guitar strings, but no lav mics, our starter guitars are awful, etc.
The South Austin Best Buy Music Department felt like the best single music store that I have seen in Austin (aka The Live Music Capital of the World). TONS of different instruments in plain view to be seen, touched, played, etc. Very impressive and it immediately drew me into the dept. as I walked in the door. makes me want to pick the drums back up again. Well done!
Totally agree with you, Pfeifer. Prior to me going out of my way as CA Senior to organize our MI area (off-plano but at least it makes sense), our assortment was not only pretty bad but pretty much just thrown together. Now we routinely make our (small) MI budget and we at least get people to stick around and try stuff out… only problem now is that I’m still the only “expert” in the store and I’m a Counter Ops Agent, so I’m literally in the other corner of the store now. Hopefully though, if this becomes a truly viable category we’ll start getting a better assortment throughout our non-MI stores.
I’m a former musician (gave it up for a career in web) and noticed an interesting trend of musicians collaborating on the web.
Would be very interesting if BestBuy partnered with a service that provides the ability for people to share –and jam in real time or asychronously.
http://www.web-strategist.com/blog/2007/01/19/social-media-creates-music/
Regarding the flash site, some of the navigation elements were ‘hidden’ beneath other layers, making it difficult to click on the different blue squares.
Having purchased a keyboard (Yamaha S08) online reviews and product comparison of features was very important.
We really should bring this to the Vegas stores. You know how popular it would be? There is a Sam Ash out here, and also an Ed Romans!(which i’ve had a tour there). Ed Romans is the largest guitar store in the world, here in our backyard. I think Best Buy would be able to do it out here too. Please? Lol
Barry: Love the mash-up concept and think that could have legs with your musically-inclined audience. Might there be an opportunity to combine these mash-ups with some of your other DVD/CD products? I’m sure you’d probably run into copyright issues…just brainstorming out loud. I also like how the video isn’t overproduced. I tend to think overproduced videos come across with too much corporate feel and have a tendency to turn off folks in this space. That said, I might even make it more “Flip-like”. Other than that, I like the concept. My son and I browse your musical instruments dept every time we visit a Best Buy (OK, and I’ll admit, I let my son bang on the drums a bit. What can I say, I have a little John Bonham on my hands).
@arikhanson
Hey barry, i’m a 3 time CMO of large tech companies, turned strategy advisor & writer for CBSNews.com & Fortune.com. I spent aprox $12K with you on a new home theater system. it has been one of the worse experiences i’ve ever had with a retailer. i am still having problems with your firm. and no one, including the store GM is owning fixing the problems. HELP!
Barry,
I know you probably get this all the time, but I promise you that listening to what I have to say will change everything you know about Twitter and revolutionize the way your using Twitter.
I have a product that we have developed that will completely blow your mind.
I am the executive producer over at Freedom + Partners, we are a digital agency in NYC. I am not looking for a project nor am I trying to get my foot in the door to steal your business from CPB or anyone else you work with.
What I would like to do is simply show you our product we KNOW will be HUGE for BestBuy.
Id like to give you guys first crack before I go public with it because it really fits your model and way of thinking.
All i need is a 5 minute phone call or an email correspondence.
Im not some crazed fool (google me Craig Elimeliah)
Trust me on this you will not be disappointed.
You can reach me at craig@freedomandpartners.com
Will be interesting to see how this compares to the old MARS…
[...] terms of marketing support, digital has a leading position. Barry Judge, Best Buy’s CMO said this about the company’s approach: “Our musical instruments department (in about 100 stores [...]
Best Buy has been doing pretty well in some markets but hasn’t reached the level MARS was able to achieve.