Super Bowl Commercial From Best Buy

Recently, while wasting time and watching television, I saw a commercial that I thought was a FIRM ASSET. It was the same commercial that was played during the Super Bowl. During the first fifteen to twenty seconds, the commercial had short clips of professionals who said what they created. For example, the first guy was named Philippe Kahn who created the camera phone, the next guy was Ray Kurzweil who invented text-to-speech synthesis and speech recognition technology, followed by a few others like Matti Makkonen who created text messaging and so on and so on. Immediately, the commercial had me hooked because all these everyday things that I see, use, and watch other people use, I can now know who created them. Usually, the only tech guys that an average Joe will know are Steve Jobs and Bill Gates. Other than that, we do not really know who invented the Hi-Def television or the person who created the GPS and all the other great technological advances that have happened in the past two and a half decades.

This made me assume that the commercial was for a social media website or some innovative new company that was trying to explain the power of innovation. Better yet, maybe it was an inspirational commercial that was trying to inspire us through the economic problems of today. I waited patiently to see what this commercial was trying to sell me or in fact what statement it was trying to make. Also, I should admit the background music was a great way to create suspense. It was a great usage of mellow tones with a slight progression. So I listened and waited….

While watching and hearing all of this I knew this commercial was going somewhere with a strong statement. What was interesting was that it was not. The commercial ended with a staff of employers from Best Buy, the electronic department store. That was a pretty big let down. However, Best Buy was smart in creating social recognition for all these great innovators, while manifesting a brand image that was trying to connect them to that type of environment.

Yet, in the end, all Best Buy was stating that all these great innovations for smart phones can be seen and bought at their stores with all the notable carriers in the U.S.A. I would give kudos to the marketing team behind this idea because the emotion stirred from the music and the filming was done very well and hit home. On the other hand, I felt that this message could have been better used to create inspiration for young aspiring inventors to create something on their own. I do have to say, Best Buy is not doing too well economically, so maybe when people do want to buy a smart phone, people will likely remember to go to Best Buy first.

Firm Asset Writer Fahad Shariff