Best Buy reinvents itself (again) to prosper in times of crisis

Geoffrey Precourt

Best Buy, the electronics retailer, adapted at speed to the COVID-19 pandemic, a process driven by an in-house agency team that had built up many of the capabilities needed to meet a crisis.

Best Buy Co. knows how to stand up to – and jump back from – a crisis.

“A dozen years ago, people thought we were going to die,” said Molly Kinsella, Best Buy’s vice president, creative services.

The internet was going to kill the retailer, the story ran, as the big-box electronics category relied on a business model teetering upon the verge of extinction. “But we turned the company around,” Kinsella told the Association of National Advertisers’ (ANA) 2020 In-House Agency Conference.

“And, three years ago, we pivoted to grow once again.”

Such adaptability has proved just as important as...

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