Forget traditional celebrity endorsements and cameo appearances, some of this year’s biggest Super Bowl commercials will feature celebrities of a different variety – those who have revolutionized mobile technologies.
Leading the charge in this new direction is Best Buy. According to published reports from Bloomberg today, Best Buy’s Super Bowl commercial will feature mobile pioneers, not run-of-the-mill celebrities.
This is quite a divergence from previous years at Best Buy when the company has turned to the likes of Ozzy Osbourne and Justin Bieber for ads on the big game day.
In 2012, however, Best Buy is turning the spotlight on “innovators who could personify Best Buy’s selling premise: that no one knows more about gadgets and how they work together than the chain’s blue-shirt sales force.”
Until Steve Jobs died, Best Buy Co. was plotting a familiar course for its Super Bowl ad: hiring a celebrity spokesman. Then all the tributes poured in after the Apple Inc. founder’s Oct. 5 death, and Best Buy’s U.S. marketing chief, Drew Panayiotou, realized Silicon Valley inventors are today’s stars.
Best Buy’s Super Bowl commercial will highlight camera phone innovator Philippe Kahn and Instagram developer Kevin Systrom.
“They may not be at the same level as Steve Jobs, but they created some amazing stuff,” Panayiotou tells Bloomberg.
