Project Blue Shirt
Pioneer needed to know how informed Best Buy blue shirts were when it came to selling Pioneer TVs. We also wanted to get an up-close look at people as they were literally going through the purchase decision. I went fully undercover for three months and learned everything there is to know about the retail environment and Best Buy work culture. We learned simpler is better. Due to a sea of jargon - 1080p/1080i/120Hz - we discovered that consumers needed and wanted a simpler way to make a choice. The campaign we developed as a result focused on the importance of the color black and how all brilliant colors were derived from it.
The infamous Project Blue Shirt blog. A full documentation of my undercover time at Best Buy, were I learned a ton about power surge protectors, “spiffing,” The Village People and life in general. Studied by strategists the world over, the project was viewed as an innovative example of “participatory” planning and insight gathering.
Newsletter by Jean-Marie Dru, Chairman, TBWA Worldwide, author of Disruption: Overturning Conventions and Shaking Up the Marketplace
