Today I drove by a busy retail area of Manhattan Beach, CA. As I entered the shopping area, I noticed the largest store with the prime location -a Borders book store that was recently closed. This was disappointing to see, as I always enjoyed going to these large book stores and often spent hours inside them browsing through the aisles. In the blogospheres, similiarly marketed Barnes and Noble stores don’t seem to be faring any better than Borders -the rapid adoption of the iPad and tough competition from sites like Amazon -seem to have been more than Borders could handle.
I parked my vehicle in the abundant spaces in front of Borders and walked a few stores over to the Best Buy, luckily they’re still in business. I had read several online articles regarding BestBuy’s increasing struggles as well (with competitors like Amazon kicking ass online), so with this visit I was wondering if Best Buy is doing anything different -as to not suffer the same fate as Borders book store did next door to them.
At the front entrance I noticed a big sign “Gaming Trade-in Available”. I gruntled at the sight of this ad, disliking it and whomever thought of this ridiculous idea up in the Best Buy corporate headquarters… How is this going to create loyal Best-Buy customers? How is this going to create a renewed growth and interest in the Best-Buy brand? And, is Best-Buy aware that there are already thousands of smaller niche game shops around the country that will always do a better job at gaming trade-ins?
As I entered the Best Buy I was noticing how much it looks like any other big box store inside, this could easily be a Costco or Wal-Mart. There is nothing unique about a Best-Buy was my immediate impression. If I was the bozo in charge of creating Best-Buy advertisements, I would create social loyalty through geo-location social mobile apps -such as Foursquare and recently purchased by Facebook, Gowalla (congrats Andy!). With huge signs at the entrance allowing Best Buy customers to check-in, alerting their social graphs wherever they may be (Facebook, Twitter, etc.).
I walked on over to the home theatre area, noticing the holiday signs. There were several of these large holiday signs throughout the store, but they were so boring I thought hardly worth reading. Wouldn’t it be much cooler if the ads sparked the customer’s curiosity? An ad that would allow the customer to engage with the Best-Buy brand? With a QR Code, Best-Buy could easily accomplish that. 😉
So, with all these thoughts racing through my head on how to save Best-Buy from suffering the same collapse as Borders’ book stores, I decided to do Best-Buy a favor and check-in on Foursquare. I was going to share my check-in on Facebook to notify my social graph. Maybe that post would be enough to remind my friends of their own need to complete a holiday purchase I thought. I pulled out my phone to open the Foursquare app, but before doing so, I knew I was going to need a wifi connection. Standing inside the largest electronics store in the United States -I figured I would easily be able to login to Best Buy’s free customer wifi… haha, yeah right!
Upon searching the available wifi networks inside Best-Buy, I did not see anything resembling a Best-Buy service. I showed my phone screen to a Best-Buy clerk and said “Excuse me, which network do I select as a Best-Buy customer for the free wifi”. The clerk looked confused and walked me over to another employee who was busy on the phone. When finally asked, the second employee annoyingly said “It’s called Best-Buy”, but before I could finish responding that there was no “Best-Buy” on the wifi list he quickly said “it goes in and out all the time” -as if I didn’t already know that, and basically telling me to stop asking him. “Oh ok, thank you” I responded.
I was a little disappointed with that answer from the first two employees I asked, and I really wanted to check-in with a wifi service rather than paying for this check-in by using my 3G service. Also, there are a plethora of iPod touch users out there -who could also take advantage of check-in apps, but do not have the option of using a 3G network -Best Buy is missing out on those check-ins as well. I walked on over to the Geek Squad desk to inquire further about the wifi situation. While standing in line, I couldn’t help but notice the Geek Squad sign that said “Check in” -at which point I was thinking I should make a blog post of these thoughts.
In the five minutes I waited in line to Check-in, I could have actually checked in!
When it was my turn to be helped, I asked the customer service employee about the wifi situation, to which I was told “we have a wifi but it’s password protected”. I asked “so there isn’t a wifi connection for customers to use and test out wifi electronic devices?” to which I was replied “no, we don’t have customer wifi here, when we did, customers would try to hack our servers and would also look up porn”. I was a little shocked by that answer, lol, and said “ok, thank you -no worries” before I started to leave.
As I began to exit, I couldn’t help but think of the missed opportunities for Best Buy here. What a great area to remind customers of the ability to check-in and save on their purchase -at the same time creating Best-Buy brand awareness all across Facebook walls across the country, unfortunately without internet access -the chances of Best Buy customers performing this action is very small.
I had written about Best Buy’s potential ability to take advantage of check-in services and geo-location in the past. This is a new marketing technique that Best-Buy could use to it’s advantage, and hopefully they figure it out before it’s too late. Amazon, as great as a job they are doing online, do not have the ability to create geo-location campaigns and share their branding through mobile phone check-ins. Amazon does not have a physical store location in every major city for their customers to mobile check-in, like Best-Buy does.
As I’m making my last turn out the exit path of a purchasing shopper -couldn’t help but think what a great place to make the final reminder. Why is capturing “Likes” and “Follows” important? Nielsen calls them “earned media impressions”. Being that it was the evening of December 5th when I visited this store, in the prime of holiday shopping season (and not a single shopper in line to purchase) -I really think Best-Buy should pay attention to social loyalty marketing.
Walking out of Best Buy 15 minutes later with no purchases in hand, I decided to grab a coffee before heading home to gather my thoughts for this blog post. Still annoyed that the country’s largest electronics retailer didn’t offer wifi to check-in, I decided to reward Starbucks for doing it right, starting with this picture I took through my phone.
Needing to tap into a wifi source to perform this check-in, I selected the “attwifi” network -which is what Starbucks normally names their networks and I know this from prior uses. However, I think it would be smarter to call these networks “ATTStarbucksWIFI” to be easily identified as Starbucks’s wifi to new customers that may not be aware.
This reminded me of a great guerilla marketing video I wanted to share along this same exact subject! 🙂
With my free customer wifi finally engaged at Starbucks, I was able to open my Foursquare app and quickly find the Starbucks location to check-into.
In addition to selecting the Facebook and Twitter share option, I also decided to upload the photo I took.
In the text description I included the #wifi and #coffee hashtag links, allowing the post further virability on the Twitter copy of this post.
Sharing the Starbucks check-in on Facebook allows the post to be seen on my profile wall, and also appears on the newsfeed section of Facebook. The Facebook post includes “Like” and “Comment” links, which allow any of my 400+ social graph friends to engage with this post.
Foursquare’s successful implementation of game mechanics onto their app rewards me with points and status. If Starbucks wanted to take it to the next level, they could easily create their own app for customers to check-in and earn rewards instantly -as Carl’s Jr. has done for their own customers in line with their rewards app.
With check-in complete and grande (err medium size) coffee in hand, I drove home to begin on this post… What are your thoughts on geo-location apps such as Foursquare and Gowalla, how would you use them to create social loyalty to your brand or business? Thanks for reading!!! 😀
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