BestBuy.com Taps DDB For $50 Million Online Account

The online subsidiary of electronics retailer Best Buy Co. Inc., BestBuy.com, on Monday hired DDB Worldwide as its advertising agency and Avenue A as media buyer, for its $50 million Internet account.

DDB Digital, DDB New York, DDB Downtown, and Avenue A (AVEA) will work with Best Buy’s (BBY) in-house advertising team to create an Internet campaign that integrates with the company’s offline efforts, which will continue to be handled by company staff.

Although Best Buy has done Internet advertising in the past, it has been aimed at driving traffic to its real world stores. This selection of an agency represents the first marketing moves for the online store, BestBuy.com, which the company says it will launch in the near future.

“BestBuy.com will leverage the full scope of the Best Buy brand. This includes hundreds of millions of dollars of advertising, a national distribution and retail store network, and a brand that makes technology and entertainment fun,” said Mike Linton, Best Buy senior vice president of strategic marketing.

The strategy is an example of what we’re likely to see as so-called “clicks and mortar” merchants appear on the Web, and begin to give their online divisions — and online advertising — more emphasis.

Best Buy operates 358 retail locations in 39 states.