Will The Best Buy Rebrand Be A Better Look?
Last week, Best Buy launched a branding refresh, including an updated Best Buy logo, a new look and feel with updated colors, photography and conversational language and a new tagline: “Let’s talk about what’s possible.” New commercials and digital videos highlighting the experience debuted May 13.
The rebranding comes after the retailer completed a
significant turnaround, having bolstered its stock price more than 500% since
Dec. 2012. Both shoppers and analysts credit the success to improved in-store
customer service, Geek Squad services, a revamped e-Commerce site, price
matching and smart home services.
The RTP team shares their thoughts on the Best Buy rebranding and whether other retailers should take similar approaches as the industry continues to evolve.
Debbie Hauss, Editor-in-Chief: I applaud Best Buy for its turnaround efforts and hyper-focus on the demands of today’s shoppers. To me, the logo is just the icing on the cake. I think the company’s CMO outlined the approach that is helping the company succeed when other traditional brick-and-mortar retailers are failing: “Telling the story of our people — and how we make a meaningful impact on customers’ lives — is at the heart of this work,” said CMO Whit Alexander in a company report. “Our people are our insurmountable advantage.” Best Buy is embracing storytelling, a focus on people internally, and building stronger relationships with shoppers.
Adam Blair, Executive Editor: Best Buy received praise for its turnaround efforts from the Wall Street analysts who spoke at the 2018 Retail Innovation Conference, and the retailer’s rebranding seems like another move that’s worthy of applause. First, it’s being done after the company has already made positive strides, so it doesn’t read like a desperate attempt to put lipstick on a pig. It maintains a connection with the past by minimizing (but not eliminating) the price tag element of the logo. And its new commercials emphasize Best Buy’s (and omnichannel retail’s) biggest strength: the face-to-face relationships that allow the company’s Blue Shirts and Geek Squad to gently guide customers through a complicated consumer electronics purchase journey.
Marie Griffin, Managing Editor: As the demise of Sports Authority and Toys ‘R’ Us shows, it’s not easy to survive as a big-box specialty retailer in the age of Amazon. Best Buy deserves credit for successfully remaining relevant in brick-and-mortar retail despite unprecedented challenges. However, Best Buy’s “new” marketing approach looks like an homage to the past rather than an accelerant for its future. By featuring actor-customers from Gen X and older generations in its commercial — in black-and-white, no less — Best Buy is reinforcing the idea that it is a place for the unsophisticated parents and grandparents of Millennials and Gen Z, but definitely not for savvy digital natives. Since we haven’t seen everything Best Buy has in store, I can only hope that subsequent advertising and marketing will double down on the reasons younger consumers should not think of Best Buy as their grandmother’s tech guru.
Glenn Taylor, Senior Editor: Best Buy’s “New Blue” growth approach and people-first mantra is clearly paying dividends for the brand, so I certainly applaud them for such a radical turnaround given their positioning five years ago. However, I feel like the logo change wasn’t necessary to reflect the changes. I don’t even think the logo change itself is a poor visual, but I’ve seen other retailers such as eBay and JOANN change logos to simpler fonts, and they don’t really elicit a response from me. If anything, companies tend to subject themselves to outside jokes with these changes, with Best Buy now being inevitably compared to Bud Light. I feel there is something to say though about the rebranding in general, particularly Best Buy’s new conversational tone of advertising. I think it fits very well with the customer-centric goal that every retailer is aiming for. People want to know that their favorite retailers care about them, and any way to instill that kind of confidence in the shopper will certainly benefit the brand.
Bryan Wassel, Associate Editor: De-emphasizing the price tag in Best Buy’s logo makes sense in a world where physical price tags feel increasingly outdated, and certainly for a chain where the draw is as much about the experience as the product. It’s a simple, plain logo for a retailer that has found success by taking traditionally stressful shopping journeys and providing experts to ease customer concerns, whether purchasing a new phone or having your tablet repaired. The Best Buy of today is not the same company as the Best Buy of 15 years ago, and the updated logo gives shoppers the freedom to form new connections in their minds without completely severing their memories of what it once was.