Best Buy’s Identity Crisis

I think Best Buy needs to have a heart to heart with it’s advertising department.  What is your company’s mission?  Southwest Airlines is successful because whenever someone brings up an idea, they ask themselves, “Does this idea align with our mission of being THE low-cost airlines?“  From previous ads, it seems that one of Best Buy’s goals is to be the premier customer-service oriented electronics store.  Their whole Geek Squad thing is great concept for adult shoppers who know jack about electronics to say, “OK. I want to buy some electronics.  Let me go to Best Buy because they have everything and their people are knowledgeable.  I know it costs a little more, but fuck it, I need the customer service and I won’t get it from buying a product through TechBargains or SlickDeals.”

There is a chance that they actually understand the first part, of having a general mission – but what about execution?  Who is the target market?  The 7-year olds that may find this ad entertaining are not shopping various electronic stores for the best $700 laptop.  I lost interest in this ad after about 3 seconds, it was only after seeing this stupid ad multiple times in a week did I realize how fucking bad it actually is.  Is this an attempt to copy a Rocky training sequence?

The bottom line is that I have learned nothing about Best Buy in this commercial.  It simply is too fictional for anyone to directly relate the advertisement to any kind of real-life training or practice of Best Buy salespeople.  If they were set on the elves, they should have shortened the training sequence and shown the elves interacting with customers at the store, fixing the product, or responding to customers complaints on the phone.  None of those would make this commercial a good one, but at least it would be grounded in something concrete.  I can’t decide if these ads are better or worse than last year’s Best Buy ads showing the salespeople randomly caroling in the streets.  I wanted to smash my TV every time they came on.  I wouldn’t have bought the replacement at Best Buy, that’s for sure.

“Trust Me, I’ve Sent People to the Doctor”

This ad is a bit of a stretch, Dr. Pepper.  Remember your sweet ads that featured Dr. J? And Dr. Dre? Those people actually had “doctor” nicknames.  Therefore, the commercials actually made a little bit of sense.  A doctor is recommending that you drink Dr. Pepper, cool.  Not the most innovative thing in the world, but it’s short, simple, and to the point.  I personally find Dr. Pepper delicious, so when I saw a commercial I reminded myself to pick some up the next time I went to the grocery store.

Strahan was a great defensive player, but he’s too goofy of a guy to take seriously.  The commercial starts out with Michael talking about how different his life is now that he’s not crushing quarterbacks every week.  Really? Who cares? We still see your ugly mug on the FOX pregame show, I know you’re not out there sniffing flowers and helping small business owners with their car problems.  There is absolutely no connection between you and Dr. Pepper.  At least show the tackle in slow motion or something -  this commercial sucks and I expect more from Dr. Pepper.

Sprint – Football Injury / Unlimited Plan

Sprint hits this series of commercials right on the money.  The first line of, “Doc, I just got your email – I’m out for the season?” sets the stage and situation immediately.  This is a classic straw man.   In each line of the commercial, the character takes what the other person said and applies to his specific issue of choice – the doctor’s being his new Sprint plan, the football player being the severity of his injury.  Sprint manages to get every important detail about it’s plan across in general conversation style while mimicking a scenario that anyone with the slightest interest in sports knows all too well.  They fit the Heath brothers rules for making the message stick: It’s simple, concrete, and surprising.   $69.99, includes unlimited everything, and the ad throws you off guard the first time you see it (like the online dating Miller Lite spoof).

See Sprint’s breakup commercial with the same style here.