Tuesday, July 31, 2018

BEST BUY - A Case Study In ReBranding

One of the largest big-box retailers recently re-branded itself. To kick-off its new brand strategy, it unveiled a new marketing campaign, refreshed its logo, and reformed its brand narrative - I'm talking about Best Buy.
New Logo / Old Logo


Best Buy's goal is to reshape its image and focus on the customer experience (known by branders, like me, as CX) vs. the attributes of the products it sells. To do this Best Buy needed to change their brand narrative and carry through on a restructuring of their core business concept to push their employee function to coincide with the new CX strategy.

In a seminar I present as one of the Fund-House's client perks, entitled - "What's Behind Your Logo - Forging An Iconic Brand" - I speak to the notion that it's not a brand that is important but the fact that a brand and the business are one in the same, and your brand strategy must be you business's mission.

To obtain that meshing of brand equals business - you must tell a story (a narrative). Best Buy knows this. "Telling the story of our people - and how we make a meaningful impact on customers' lives. Our people are our insurmountable advantage" says Walt Alexander, Chief Marketing Officer of Best Buy.  Walt, gets it! Now to implement.

To accomplish this implementation, Best Buy has designed new promotional ads which were shot in black and white except for the bright blue shirts worn by every Best Buy employee - putting emphasis on the employee and their vital interaction with the customer. These promos are short vignettes that provide subtle hints on how technology can actually be used in ways to improve the customer's life.

Under the new branding strategy, employees are taught to tailor the shopping experience to the customers' needs - by engaging the customer. This scenario is not new and time will tell if Best Buy does it right or falls flat. CX is what marketing in now all about and should be at the top of very business's agenda.

I wish Best Buy all the luck in re-branding itself as this is not an easy task for any company.

Stay in touch,
Jim Lavorato

No comments:

Post a Comment