Best Buy gets taste of medicine it gave Walmart

Have you seen the new ad campaign from Newegg.com? The online electronics retailer recently began airing spots that take aim at Best Buy the same way ads Best Buy ran back in 2009 took aim at Walmart.

When Best Buy ran its spots Walmart was making a big push in consumer electronics and to establish a point of differentiation Best Buy ads touted the superior product knowledge of its associates. Now, Newegg.com is doing the same thing to Best Buy, with a spot that shows a fresh-faced associate in a blue shirt in a consumer electronics superstore that resembles a Best Buy format who becomes confused when a customer asks him to explain the difference between two laptops. As the clueless employee stares at the computers, a voiceover touts the user-generated content on Newegg’s site by advising, “Come for the great reviews, buy for the great prices.”

Targeting Walmart didn’t produce great results for Best Buy so Newegg.com may not fare much better, but its strategy of touting the user reviews as a means to generate Web traffic is clever. Watch the spot here.