“There’s new innovation coming,” Weber said. “Consumers are going to be looking for someone that can help them sort through that complexity and also help inspire them and help them find new things that help them take what they love to the next level.”
Earlier this year, Best Buy partnered with CNET to offer a new kind of inventory to advertisers—one that pairs the reviews and editorial authority of CNET with the purchase opportunities available through Best Buy.
Commerce media analyst Andrew Lipsman expects more of these partnerships as retailers expand their retail media businesses. It also indicates that Best Buy is thinking strategically about using its audience data for advertisers, offering more detailed sales attribution.
The hangover begins to subside
While sales of consumer electronics have struggled in the past two years, Lipsman said that’s widely understood as a hangover following the pandemic-era spending flurry, when people were investing in at-home entertainment during lockdown.
In the past few quarters, Best Buy’s earnings have shown signs of improvement, signaling that consumers are beginning to invest in upgrades.
Weber acknowledged the challenges that the Covid-19 pandemic presented for retailers, describing this moment as an opportunity for the company to reintroduce itself to consumers as they’re finally prepping to replace purchases made in 2020 and 2021, and to better position itself for the next era of AI-focused tech innovation.
“We really wanted to … elevate and expand our relationship with [shoppers] so that it was more focused on being a discovery partner in technology,” she said.
Branding to improve the ad business
Branding is primarily a consumer play, but its effectiveness has ripple effects on the retailer’s ad inventory depending on how well its strategy resonates with shoppers.
“Branding around innovations and branding around the future is good branding strategy, especially if a consumer sees it as relevant,” Lipsman said. “It could pay some dividends to the ad business in the future.”
Debuting a holographic spokesperson now is smart, he added, as it’s likely that holographic, three-dimensional displays will make their way into in-store ads in the coming years. Building a foundation for that now—demonstrating what that kind of inventory might look like—could help advertisers to imagine those possibilities as the tech and capital investment catches up.
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