Best Buy Hyper Targets Smartphone Ads
The all-important holiday shopping season is approaching, but before Black 
Friday, retailers need to face other smaller, but still significant, seasons.
After the often uneventful and sluggish summer months, back-to-school is the first major sales promotion period for many retailers. Kids and college students returning to school need the right supplies to start the new year, and retailers need the right advertising to ensure that their products are the ones in backpacks and desks in the classroom come September.
When electronics giant Best Buy was faced with its back-to-school advertising question, the retailer turned to mobile. Best Buy is already strongly tapped into the mobile universe, offering multiple applications in both the Android and Apple marketplaces, as well as having recently extended its use of the location-based Shopkick app chainwide.
The retailer already ties together m-commerce, social media and brick-and-mortar retailing seamlessly, so it made sense to delve into mobile marketing for the back-to-school season as well.
Targeted Mobile Ads: Check!
Best Buy recognized that the most targeted consumer is a person located in the store, and that engaging with them via their mobile devices while they are in the store can help drive local sales and increase transaction value.
That’s why the retailer teamed up with mobile shopping application ShopSavvy and vertical ad network Longboard Media to run a highly targeted location-based back-to-school campaign that sent advertising directly to consumers’ mobile phones while they were in the store.
ShopSavvy and Longboard Media offer highly targeted ad campaigns through ShopSavvy’s AdOns platform. The platform enables Best Buy to deliver hyper-relevant messages to mobile customers at the point of highest intent, as they stand in a retail store with a potential purchase in hand.
When ShopSavvy users scan a barcode with their smartphone, the app informs them where items are sold locally and online, as well as the availability of the item. In Best Buy’s campaign, the application instantly determined the store customers were located in when they scanned products such as tablets, laptops and consumer electronics. With this information, the app was able to access that store’s inventory and promotions and send them directly to shoppers’ devices.
As part of Best Buy’s initiative, ShopSavvy sends a back-to-school “checklist” to devices. The ad encouraged consumers to add the scanned product to the list, which also contained other back-to-school products. Consumers were also encouraged to purchase the related products either in-store, online or directly from their mobile devices.
Marketing Success
Best Buy’s back-to-school campaign opens the door to mobile marketing in the cross-channel arena. Engaging with shoppers in a mobile environment with online offers in the store setting, the retailer continues to seamlessly integrate its multiple channels for continued cross-channel success.
Friday, retailers need to face other smaller, but still significant, seasons.After the often uneventful and sluggish summer months, back-to-school is the first major sales promotion period for many retailers. Kids and college students returning to school need the right supplies to start the new year, and retailers need the right advertising to ensure that their products are the ones in backpacks and desks in the classroom come September.
When electronics giant Best Buy was faced with its back-to-school advertising question, the retailer turned to mobile. Best Buy is already strongly tapped into the mobile universe, offering multiple applications in both the Android and Apple marketplaces, as well as having recently extended its use of the location-based Shopkick app chainwide.
The retailer already ties together m-commerce, social media and brick-and-mortar retailing seamlessly, so it made sense to delve into mobile marketing for the back-to-school season as well.
Targeted Mobile Ads: Check!
Best Buy recognized that the most targeted consumer is a person located in the store, and that engaging with them via their mobile devices while they are in the store can help drive local sales and increase transaction value.
That’s why the retailer teamed up with mobile shopping application ShopSavvy and vertical ad network Longboard Media to run a highly targeted location-based back-to-school campaign that sent advertising directly to consumers’ mobile phones while they were in the store.
ShopSavvy and Longboard Media offer highly targeted ad campaigns through ShopSavvy’s AdOns platform. The platform enables Best Buy to deliver hyper-relevant messages to mobile customers at the point of highest intent, as they stand in a retail store with a potential purchase in hand.
When ShopSavvy users scan a barcode with their smartphone, the app informs them where items are sold locally and online, as well as the availability of the item. In Best Buy’s campaign, the application instantly determined the store customers were located in when they scanned products such as tablets, laptops and consumer electronics. With this information, the app was able to access that store’s inventory and promotions and send them directly to shoppers’ devices.
As part of Best Buy’s initiative, ShopSavvy sends a back-to-school “checklist” to devices. The ad encouraged consumers to add the scanned product to the list, which also contained other back-to-school products. Consumers were also encouraged to purchase the related products either in-store, online or directly from their mobile devices.
Marketing Success
Best Buy’s back-to-school campaign opens the door to mobile marketing in the cross-channel arena. Engaging with shoppers in a mobile environment with online offers in the store setting, the retailer continues to seamlessly integrate its multiple channels for continued cross-channel success.