Barry Judge // Updates from the CMO of Best Buy

Thank you.

Thank you for participating, commenting, re-tweeting, blogging about and contributing your thoughts to the discussion regarding the Emerging Media job description crowdsourcing effort so far. We’re only a couple of days into it and the response has been phenomenal. So again, thank you.

Although we’re asking for ideas related to our job description, we’re discovering that the issue of how to identify talent in this space may be a sore point for other companies as well. Hopefully at the end of the day the discussion resulting from this will also contribute to the larger discussion beyond our Emerging Media role.

We’ve gotten some great ideas submitted so far to the IdeaX site. There’s been a couple bumps in the road however.

The IdeaX team is seeing more ideas on the back end that aren’t getting published to the public site. If you’ve submitted your idea and don’t see it on the site yet please follow the advice given on the IdeaX blog post from yesterday  Read more...

Since we launched our “True Stories” communication platform in November, it has become my custom to post the “rough cut” TV execution options prior to us making the final decision. In prior posts, we have gotten excellent feedback – comments that have made our messaging clearer as well as input in helping us choose the actual spots to run. So in keeping with this new way (for me) in getting feedback, the following are TV rough cut executions we are considering for the Back To School. These ads are indeed rough – we have not included the music or background images as we do not have clearance yet for these pieces. I learned this lesson the hard way in November (see November posts). Thus, please react primarily to the story and the story teller as the music and the images will make the ads significantaly more interesting.  Read more...

As you all know, the internet continues to profoundly change how people connect and engage with the world. Recent years have seen the rise of many types of “personal” user-generated content, from videos (YouTube) to photos (Flickr) to status updates (Facebook and Twitter). At the same time, these innovations are causing profound disruption to traditional media outlets like Television and Newspapers.

While no one “killer” model has yet emerged for how brands and businesses show up in the new media environment, we cannot sit still. I am proud of the innovation we are leading at Best Buy, from employees on Twitter to company blogs, forums, and more. Only through constant experimentation and innovation will we ensure we lead the change, rather than merely follow.  Read more...

As we continue to explore new ways to make our customers happy, Best Buy is moving into the used games market. This week, several of our Dallas and Austin stores will test a kiosk-based model that allows customers to insert their used games into a kiosk that will scan it for functionality, and immediately issue a voucher that is instantly redeemable for a Best Buy gift card. It’s a pretty slick system and one of the few trade-in programs to provide instant gratification; you get the gift card on the spot and can redeem it on anything in the store – not just another game. We’ll also be testing the sale of used games in those stores, and some of the kiosks will even rent games and movies. We’re excited about this test, especially because we know how deeply passionate our customers and our employees are about gaming, movies and entertainment overall. And the trade-in and used value propositions will give those passionate customers even more choice and value at Best Buy.  Read more...

Today Best Buy reported its first quarter earnings. Despite the general softness in demand that our industry is seeing, we have achieved very strong results that every Best Buy employee can be proud of. It’s especially exciting to see that we continued to grow our market share. In fact, we had a gain of 200 basis points from February to April, and we are seeing that share gain continue.

Arguably, some of that pick-up came from Circuit City shuttering its doors, but only some. People have choices when they shop for consumer electronics, so it’s encouraging to see that our blend of service, selection, value and price is drawing a growing number of them to Best Buy and our brand promise. Over the weekend I blogged about bringing “Dream Support” to life. I believe it is the promise of “Dream Support” that will fulfill an increasingly unmet need in the market. One reason goes back to the numbers. Some of our biggest share gains over the past quarter were in big-screen TVs, computers and mobile phones – all products where customers have a lot of questions and often a little anxiety, which our Blue Shirts can handle better than any competitor can. Overall, our numbers say that our strategy is on track as we continue to keep fighting for every customer in a challenging and competitive market.

Every time I think I’ve heard the best story yet about how one of our people helped a customer, I hear an even better one. Today I’m posting a new “True Stories” TV ad that is just that kind of story. It shows that you never know where the next Best Buy customer might come from, and that price parity is just the starting point in a consumer’s definition of value.

At Best Buy, we are very bullish about our future, but that doesn’t make us complacent. We are vying for every customer out there. To us the battlegrounds are service, selection, value and price. Customers will see us continue to be aggressive on price and continue to improve our competitive position, but price matching is really just the cost of admission. Best Buy is putting its energy into the higher value differentiators that independent surveys and our own research tell us that customers — especially former Circuit City customers — prefer. Service, selection and value. I call this “Dream Support.”  Read more...

Robert Stephens, the founder of Geek Squad, once told me “the easier you make it for customers to complain, the better your product will become.” Those words have really stuck with me. I would add that you also have to be “open” to really hear what people are saying and then the “will” to do something about it.  This is hard even in our personal lives. I call this being accessible and I think being great at “accessibility,” could be a powerful differentiator, at least for Best Buy.

These days, it’s easy to be more accessible. Truly, the only limitations are cultural. We are doing a lot of experiments in being more accessible. Our latest test, Best Buy IdeaXchange, is a web site that is intended to enable consumers (and employees) to give us feedback on what they would like to see us do to make Best Buy a better place to shop.  The idea was born frm watching what Dell and Starbucks have done to encourage open consumer input. The site will live off of BestBuy.com when we get past Beta. I would love your feedback in this test phase. Here’s a link to BestBuy IdeaX  Read more...