More Super Bowl Commercial Thoughts...

After a day of reflecting on the best Super Bowl ads, I'd still argue that from a marketers perspective the M&M and Best Buy commercials were two of the best.

My assessment is based on a mix of how effective I think the commercial is across three dimensions:

1. Grabs you're attention and entertains - nearly all Super Bowl ads did this
2. Sells a clear product benefit that links with the brand equity
3. Strong brand recall (e.g., you actually remember what brand the ad was from)

While many other of the Super Bowl ads did a good job across one or two of these dimensions, few delivered strongly against all of them.  

Some of the best of the rest:

Mercedes-Benz's Soul super bowl commercial

Tide's Miracle Stain super bowl commercial


Samsung's The Next Big Thing super bowl commercial


The other interesting thing to note was how many advertisers chose to go with a long-format spot versus the standard 30 second ad.  There were at least 5 commercials that pushed 90 seconds as advertisers took advantage of a captive audience to tell their stories and seek to connect with consumers in new ways.

Best Buy Super Bowl Ad on target

Best Buy's 2013 Super Bowl Commercial was right on target.

How do you convince 150 million Americans that you can still be relevant in the days of Amazon and Walmart?  You remind your lapsed customers of your point of difference over and over again. The commercial leveraged Amy Poehler in a humorous manner as a technologically challenged and a little outrageous customer.

The ad is right on because Best Buy's only chance for survival is winning customers back on the basis of delivering superior customer service to customers who need a little extra hand holding.  Call it a return to their original secret sauce. Timely, especially given that founder Richard Schulze is currently trying to make a bid to retake control of the company.

Good work Best Buy.  Call it a baby step forward.

Sear's appliance blood in the water?

As Sear's continues to fade away in the landscape of US retailers with over 100 store closures this year, its competitors are sensing the blood in the water sort to speak.  Appliances have always been a staple for Sear's, a source of traffic, revenue, and profit.  Not just through the sale of the actual appliances, but also selling add ons like Sear's product warranties and delivery/haul away services.

Sear's traditionally carried one of the largest overall selection of appliances and it also had a lot of consumer pull behind it's private label Kenmore brand.  But as Sear's struggles deepened they even agreed to let Costco sell a limited assortment of Kenmore appliances.  As Sear's grip on the appliance market continue to slip, competitors such as Best Buy, Home Depot, and even Walmart are moving to increase their assortment to try to woo more sales out of their consumers.

So goes appliances, so goes Sear's.  So look for Sear's to double down and fight to retain market share, for Sear's sake, you only hope its not too late now that blood is in the water and Kenmore is out of the bag.

Best Buy have a showroom problem?

It's no secret that Best Buy has had many business challenges lately as the chain faces declining sales and potential door closures.  Many analysts have pointed to showrooming for online vendors as one of the major culprits of Best Buy's woes.

Showrooming is the concept that consumers browse a product in a traditional brick-and-morter store, only to purchase it online at a cheaper price.  The primary case study of showrooming has aways been consumers browse and compare TVs in person at Best Buy and then ultimately purchasing online at Amazon where they traditionally haven't had to pay sales tax.

A recent analysis of the Stevenson Company’s TraQline market studies by the Consumer Electronics Association shows that while showrooming may be allowing Amazon to cannibalize customers away from Best Buy, its actually other brick-an-morter stores that appear to be more of an issue.

The study suggests that when it comes to purchasing a new TV, 48% of all TV shoppers visited Best Buy to browse the TV section.  Of these shoppers, over half (56%) ultimately purchased a TV at Best Buy, while 44% ultimately purchased somewhere else.  So where did these consumers purchase their TVs?  The TraQline data suggests that of the shoppers who visited Best Buy, but purchased a TV elsewhere: 

• 31% purchased at Walmart
• 9% purchased at Costco
• 8% purchased at Amazon
• 7% purchased at Target

So, while Amazon is siphoning of 8% of purchasers and one would expect that number to continue climbing, the data clearly indicates that Best Buy has larger challenges than showrooming for online vendors.  The data suggests Best Buys value equation is less compelling than many competitors.  As Best Buy continues to lose shoppers to multiple competitors that consumers feel offer better value, it needs to reexamine its overall value equation and better define its proposition for consumers.