Next Super Bowl Sunday, you may walk into Best Buy to score a new TV and get blitzed by ads for snacks on every screen, window, and store surface. The retailer’s bold brand “takeover” play has TWIRM asking if the electronics giant is transforming into a full-on media company.
TWIRM, as every retail media maven knows, is the This Week in Retail Media podcast, where Kate Dickson, Head of Marketing and Communications, Retail Media, STRATACACHE, and Jonathan Rosen, STRATACACHE’s Global EVP of Retail Media Strategy, reach across the Atlantic to discuss three news stories that excite them, intrigue them and even, sometimes, make them flip their proverbial “lids.”
This week’s first lid-flipping story is Best Buy’s big move, announced at its We Got Next showcase with all the sizzle of a TV upfront, to offer month-long brand “takeovers” that transform every screen and surface into premium advertising real estate. The electronics giant is targeting both traditional partners and non-endemic advertisers, while expanding their in-house creative agency, Best Buy Studios, to produce 6,000 campaigns this year versus 3,000 last year.
“It really is a big breakthrough,” says Jonathan. “This is the closest thing to feeling like these guys are just as much a media company as they are a retailer.” Kate agrees, but wonders about potential tensions that may emerge between its store-in-store brand partners like Google and Samsung and their competitors.
After diving deep into Best Buy’s media move, Kate and Jonathan surface to check in on Target’s expansion of its next-day delivery service. Lastly, they head to the movies where Cinemark is partnering with Rocket to target ads to in-theater ticket buyers.
Click here to hear Kate and Jonathan’s far-ranging and free-wheeling discussion of Best Buy’s big media plans.
