Best Buy used its annual showcase event this week to center its retail media sales pitch on connected TV advertising, according to Modern Retail. The electronics retailer is packaging CTV placements as the lead offering when it sells brand exposure to supplier partners — a meaningful shift from the standard retail media mix of on-site display, search, and sponsored product ads.
The move connects two assets: Best Buy sells a significant volume of connected TVs and streaming devices, and it operates a retail media network that monetizes brand access to shoppers. By highlighting CTV inventory in its pitch, the retailer positions itself as the seller who understands the hardware consumers use to stream video, then offers brands the chance to reach those same households through video ads served on those devices. Modern Retail reported the CTV-first strategy as the centerpiece of the showcase presentation to suppliers.
This works because retail media has moved beyond product-page banners. Brands buying retail media now allocate budgets for video — the format that tells a story, demonstrates use, and carries higher CPMs. Best Buy's angle is distribution: it knows which households bought which TV models, their price points, their likely usage patterns. When a brand buys CTV inventory through Best Buy's network, it is not guessing at audience; it is buying against purchase behavior and owned customer data. That data layer makes the pitch more accountable than open-market programmatic video.
The steal for a small physical-product brand is this: identify the platform where your buyer makes a related durable purchase, then offer to sponsor content or placements on that platform. If you sell premium coffee gear, approach the retailer or marketplace that sold the espresso machine and propose a video series or sponsored tutorial that runs in their email, app, or on-site content hub. You are not buying a $50,000 CTV media plan. You are offering to create the video asset — a three-minute how-to or unboxing — and asking the platform to distribute it to recent buyers of complementary products in exchange for a flat sponsorship fee or a rev-share on attributed sales.
Start by listing the ten products your customer buys before or alongside yours. Find the retailers, marketplaces, or membership communities that sell those products and have email lists or content channels. Write a one-page pitch: you will produce the video, they will send it to the relevant segment, and you will split the revenue or pay a $500 to $2,000 flat sponsorship based on list size. The video долж name your product but teach the broader use case — the retailer's audience stays engaged, your brand gets introduced in a trusted environment, and the cost is a fraction of paid media.
The mechanism is placement within an existing relationship. Best Buy is pitching CTV because it already owns the supplier partnership and the customer data. You replicate that by finding the entity that sold the adjacent product and offering content that serves their customer while introducing yours. No new audience build. No cold traffic. You are paying to be useful inside someone else's earned distribution.