New marketing chief keeping Best Buy on the Super Bowl sidelines

Best Buy has apparently decided that Super Bowl ads are not the best buy, after all.

Led by a new chief marketing officer, the electronics giant has opted to skip expensive ads during the big game and will focus instead on the digital approach, the Star Tribune reports.

Digital marketing can be more targeted and personalized than traditional media, the newspaper notes. But, of course, the shift deprives television viewers of such celebrity pairings as Ozzy Osbourne and Justin Bieber.

With no fanfare, Richfield-based Best Buy made Greg Revelle their new CMO in November. Revelle had previously held the same position with Auto Nation.

The Best Buy post had been vacant since May of 2012. The blog at TheListInc says Revelle was hired specifically to lead the company's digital shift.

Revell's bio on the Best Buy site says he supports the company's "drive toward highly personalized customer communication and engagement."

University of Minnesota advertising professor Steve Wehrenberg tells the Star Tribune it's unusual for a retailer to leave its chief marketing job vacant for as long as Best Buy did. But Wehrenberg says the marketing post is becoming more important to retailers and the company likely wanted to take its time to find the right person.