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Best Buy Uses TiVo, Twitter to Battle Walmart
Best Buy to promote directly on special TiVo DVRs. Big-box retailer will also use Twitter to seek customers.
If you’re keeping score of the ongoing battle between Best Buy and Walmart for electronics retail supremacy, award Best Buy a few points.
Best Buy is announcing a partnership with TiVo today, which will promote Best Buy on TVs via special versions of TiVo's DVRs, according to The New York Times.
Best Buy, which recently launched a video directly attacking Walmart (watch below), is also launching a campaign aimed at garnering customers through Twitter.
The TiVo partnership seems like a win-win for Best Buy. Its efforts to move TiVo products are doubly rewarded with custom advertising for other Best Buy products.
Financial details of the multi-year deal haven’t been disclosed, according to the Times. Best Buy will finance an effort to bring TiVo’s software and search tools to other Best Buy products, like its Insignia HDTVs.
Best Buy and TiVo also plan to leverage Napster's music subscription service, which Best Buy recently acquired.
The big-box retailer’s efforts appear at least partially fueled by Walmart’s recent efforts to gain more of an electronics market share. When Circuit City closed and Tweeter abruptly shut down, its hoards of customers became up for grabs.
Walmart kicked up its merchandising (and advertising) by emphasizing 1080p and Blu-ray products. It also rolled out “larger,” “more interactive” and “roomier” electronics displays for all its U.S. stores.
Best Buy responded by announcing plans to open 13 stores each with “updated layouts” and “interactive displays.”
While the TiVo alliance reflects Best Buy’s efforts to take the battle outside of its stores, the big-box retailer is also taking its messages to customers mobile devices and computers. The company is launching a Twitter campaign, called Twelpforce, according to Bloomberg.com.
Twelpforce is a customer service team dedicated to using Twitter to answer product questions and stimulate sales. Twelpforce will search Twitter posts to find people looking for information about electronics.
The report has Best Buy chief marketing officer Barry Judge explaining:
Clearly, Best Buy sees product knowledge as a differentiator between Walmart and itself. A recent TV commercial directly takes on Walmart while positioning Best Buy as having more knowledgeable salespeople.
Your move, Walmart.
Check out the Best Buy commercial taking on Walmart here:
Best Buy is announcing a partnership with TiVo today, which will promote Best Buy on TVs via special versions of TiVo's DVRs, according to The New York Times.
Best Buy, which recently launched a video directly attacking Walmart (watch below), is also launching a campaign aimed at garnering customers through Twitter.
Best Buy and TiVo
The TiVo partnership seems like a win-win for Best Buy. Its efforts to move TiVo products are doubly rewarded with custom advertising for other Best Buy products.
Financial details of the multi-year deal haven’t been disclosed, according to the Times. Best Buy will finance an effort to bring TiVo’s software and search tools to other Best Buy products, like its Insignia HDTVs.
Best Buy and TiVo also plan to leverage Napster's music subscription service, which Best Buy recently acquired.
The big-box retailer’s efforts appear at least partially fueled by Walmart’s recent efforts to gain more of an electronics market share. When Circuit City closed and Tweeter abruptly shut down, its hoards of customers became up for grabs.
Walmart kicked up its merchandising (and advertising) by emphasizing 1080p and Blu-ray products. It also rolled out “larger,” “more interactive” and “roomier” electronics displays for all its U.S. stores.
Best Buy responded by announcing plans to open 13 stores each with “updated layouts” and “interactive displays.”
Best Buy and Twitter
While the TiVo alliance reflects Best Buy’s efforts to take the battle outside of its stores, the big-box retailer is also taking its messages to customers mobile devices and computers. The company is launching a Twitter campaign, called Twelpforce, according to Bloomberg.com.
Twelpforce is a customer service team dedicated to using Twitter to answer product questions and stimulate sales. Twelpforce will search Twitter posts to find people looking for information about electronics.
The report has Best Buy chief marketing officer Barry Judge explaining:
“The old paradigm is you open your doors and hope someone comes in. In the new world, you can go out and find people that are talking about technology and what they’re interested in buying, and be generous with your knowledge. And hopefully if you’re generous and knowledgeable, people will come and buy.”
Best Buy and TV Ads
Clearly, Best Buy sees product knowledge as a differentiator between Walmart and itself. A recent TV commercial directly takes on Walmart while positioning Best Buy as having more knowledgeable salespeople.
Your move, Walmart.
Check out the Best Buy commercial taking on Walmart here:
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About the Author
Tom LeBlanc, Senior Writer/Technology Editor, CE Pro
Tom has been covering consumer electronics for six years. Before that, he wrote for the sports department of the Boston Herald. Migrating to magazines, he was a staff editor for a golf publication and an outdoor sports publication. Now, as senior writer/technology editor of CE Pro magazine since 2003, he dabbles in all departments and offers expertise in marketing. Follow him on Twitter @leblanctom.
2 Comments (displayed in order by date/time)
While your comments are accurate and funny, the subject itself is not. I often think about how many good people and families lost their jobs, their income, with little or no possibility of
a new position elsewhere. Some will land on their feet, many won’t land so softly. BB had a unique oportunity to step up their game, but instead they chose to consider their labor / sales force a comodity. This is where the rubber meets the road. I hope the upper admin is enjoying their large, empty homes while others are wondering how they are going to survive.
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The moment i saw the Bestbuy V Walmart ad on TV i knew BestBuy was scared and fighting back
.
I am in New Orleans right now and the local walmart has a beautiful wall of LCD’s & just across the way they have a whole section of flat screen TV furniture with real TV’s mounted to them. So for about 75’ your completely surrounded by high gloss black shiny goodness at a low low rolled back price.
BestBuy is being beaten at their own game. I want to coin the term “Buh Buy” and “Bust Buy” for when Best Buy files for bankruptcy protection
. Cant wait to get my hands on one of those Geek bugs at the auction.