David v. Goliath (who once was David)

As I was growing up, Best Buy was unquestionably a place you would beg to be dropped off while your mom visited the nearest clothing outlet or mall, as was often the case. You would spend hours walking through an endless display of mystical, amazing, and ‘necessary’ technology. Best Buy was one of these fabulous success stories eventually rising to the top of the consumer electronics industry (and for many good reasons).

They were, without a doubt, at the top of their class.

However, as I came of age there was a David in the making. By the time I was at college in 2006, there was this cool website where you could order some of that mystical technology you had put your hands on in middle school and dreamed of owning growing up… but there was a conflict of interests.

When you were younger, you always pictured yourself buying that laptop, that external hard drive, and that flash drive from Best Buy.

So naturally, you head to Best Buy. As you arrive you are greeted by some pretty un-helpful employees. You ask about the famous price match that you used to use as the reason for coming to Best Buy instead of say, Circuit City. They ask which store you found a better price, was it Circuit City? Target? Wal-Mart?

You respond, ‘Newegg has them for $50 less. That exact product.’ The employee looks back at you oddly… I wrote about this story in February of 2010 and pointed to the fact that if something didn’t change, companies like NewEgg and Amazon were certainly going to win that race (the original blog found here).

Like I said in the previous blog, I had mad respect for Best Buy growing up. I fully expected them to figure it out and make adjustments to be competitive with online companies. Well, a recent event has forever forced me to give up hope on Best Buy and officially claim NewEgg king. Best Buy clearly doesn’t get ‘it’ and on so many levels.

The New(Egg) King

If you don’t know about the fiasco involving Best Buy issuing a cease and desist to NewEgg… well you should. NewEgg made a pretty hilarious commercial, featured below:

First off, that is a pretty classic commercial. Secondly, it is of note that in marketing it is a general fact that as long as you are not the top dog in an industry or category, poking fun at the leader is an acceptable practice.

Best Buy issued a cease and desist to NewEgg after this commercial was met with much On Air and Internet success. What happens next is something that is probably going to be the stuff of social media legend. Instead of ignoring it or hiding it or actually removing the commercial, NewEgg posted the cease and desist documentation to their Facebook Fan Page! How crazy is that! They also posted their response to their Facebook and Twitter.

Between the two posts (of both documentations on Facebook), there were over 2,000 comments and 3400 ‘likes’ on Facebook. Not only that, but the views on the YouTube commercial spiked, were imbedded in blogs like this, and the whole story covered here and in like places. This is viral in about as many ways as is possible and this is only talking about Facebook. I saw countless people tweeting and retweeting this stuff.

So What?

There is no reason, at all, that Best Buy should be losing to NewEgg. Their brand was so deeply ingrained in my brain that I literally went to their store to ask for the price match before I would even consider buying from NewEgg. They had me, my money, my word of mouth, and my loyalty… and they squandered it.

They use their social media channels to blast you with sales, deals, and new products. All the while, NewEgg is using theirs to actually interact and connect with their followers.

But so what? Why do they care about my business or my loyalty? Don’t they have 3 million fans to NewEgg’s 600 thousand? Don’t they make more money than NewEgg?

Certainly, they do. But the game is changing and NewEgg understands the new rules. In fact, they are creating them.

Best Buy’s bottom line might look good right now, but we’ll see who still stands in 5 years. My bet’s on NewEgg. It’s a shame they are private, or I know what shares I would be buying… My money would gladly rest in the laurels of David.

Zach

P.S. NewEgg got a little crazy after those two postings. To further the ‘Geek On’ marketing campaign as featured in the video ad above, they gave away 5,000 shirts with the Geek On logo on it (also seen above). The first 5,000 customers to order it from their store got it absolutely free. At the same time, if you head over to the Best Buy fan page you can catch the online only, one day sale of that Flip Mino I bought from NewEgg last year…

Related posts:

1. #Winning with Twitter
2. Sales Increase
3. Three Lessons from ‘The Social Network’ Movie

YouTube

I wanted to start out with YouTube because I have seen some prime examples of excellent YouTube channels lately and had a bit of success within one of my own ventures with it. There are all kinds of reasons why a business would want to use youtube. Here are a few key examples:

1. To Show Expertise and Thought Leadership
2. For Marketing and Advertising
3. To Ease Customer Service
4. To Offer Free Content
5. To host a contest
6. Spotlighting employees or customers

Businesses have found lots of ways to make YouTube work for them, from simply posting their commericials to posting ‘how to’ videos and interviews. Whatever your business model, it’s likely that you can use YouTube to your advantage. Let’s take a look at a few prime examples.

Nationwide is on Your Side

We’ve heard the slogan a million times, but like most under 30 I don’t really care how long you’ve been in business or how much money you make a year or how often I see your commercial. What I care about is what does using your brand say about me?

What kind of car do you drive? Where do you like to go eat? Where do you get your suits? What about that tie? We are faced with these questions daily and we have to own up to a brand. So when someone asks about the insurance you use, I doubt you’ll ever reply, ‘I use Nationwide… because they are on my side’.

BUT… thanks to their recent use of YouTube I could reply, ‘Nationwide… you know. The guy who throws up the alphabet soup.’ Odd right?

Not really. Watch this:

This is a perfect example of YouTube. A brand usually viewed as older (we’re talking insurance here) suddenly became something I (a twenty-something) can own. Something I can tell my friends about and not feel out of place for saying. Even if they haven’t seen it all it takes is using their YouTube channel and suddenly my friends associate humor with me. Not just any humor either. This is young humor. Most over 40 probably wouldn’t laugh at this the first time.

You can find their YouTube channel (whose design is awesome as well) here. They have actually developed an entire story around The World’s Greatest Spokesperson… In the world.

Team Covenant

Team Covenant… What the heck is that? Oh… That’s the company that I run. The company I run is an online content site and retailer for table-top games. So how does a game company use social media? You guessed it. Or at least part of it. We use it to show the games off! We also do all kinds of other things with it. We show us interacting with customers at conventions, we post the final games in big tournaments, we make promotional videos for our own custom products, and on and on it goes. You can watch a prime example below.

This is good because it gives the people we meet a conventions a reason to come to our site over the next few weeks to see if they are featured in any of our videos. It also shows people that they don’t buy products from a company, they buy products from a group of guys who pour their heart and soul into these games. I think this is the most important part of videos on our site. It shows relevant content that also shows people who we are.

You can find our YouTube channel (which I must say is also awesomely designed) and a ton of videos here. I’m still doing a lot of trial and error research to define who we really are in the video space and will be trying some pretty crazy stuff out in the coming weeks. I’ll be sure and post updates at some point.

Who Are You?

I blogged a few weeks back about knowing who you are and I want to reiterate it again. Both of these YouTube pages and videos work because it relates to the company and the customer. This is the most important part in deciding how to incorporate video and YouTube into your business model. I’m not saying that this should replace your marketing or that it is to become your sole mode of interaction with your customers, but it can be a very important part of your marketing mix.

Do you use YouTube? If so, how? Have you found any success with it?

If you have questions or a unique situation you can post below. If you’d rather not post online your ideas or model, feel free to post asking for content. Be sure to use a good email in the email section of the comment so I can get back to you.

Zach

Related posts:

1. One Year Later and @NewEgg is Still Winning
2. Be Great
3. Build a Following: The Art of Surprise