Meet Anna Kruse

Each week, we sit down with a marketing leader to learn more about their career, insights, and accomplishments. This week, that marketing leader is Anna Kruse, Vice President of Ads and Media Strategy at Best Buy.

From working in retail to working as a publisher, Anna has consistently thrived in entrepreneurial environments with roles that focus on helping, connecting, and building relationships with customers.

Here are the need-to-knows about Anna:

• Anna helped launch Target Media Network, which became one of the earliest and most influential retail media platforms in the country.

• She’s been at Best Buy for nearly a decade, where she has helped evolve their retail media business into a full-funnel, data-powered engine.

• Her background spans publishing, event marketing, and digital strategy, with a common thread of building.

From publisher to digital marketer

Anna didn’t have her sights set on corporate marketing when she first got started. She was a mass communications and English major who found her way into marketing through her college newspaper.

“That’s where I got the bug,” she said. “I loved everything about media—how fast-paced it was and how every day was different.”

After graduation, Anna worked on the publisher side doing all different roles: promotions, marketing, and sales. Then once she felt like she learned everything she could, she tried something different.

Anna joined Target in 2008 and leaned heavily into digital marketing. “It was really fun. We got to work on all sorts of digital pilots and screens that help consumers shop. So then the thread of my career turned to retail media, which I would say I sort of accidentally fell into. But retail media is media, right?”

Given her experience and passion for media, Anna said bringing those skills to a retailer felt very natural. But back then when she was coming up, it wasn’t even really called retail media. Her team was called the Target Media Network, and her job involved a lot of first-hand learning and then educating.

“Obviously, Target.com existed at that point but we didn’t think people were shopping for everyday essentials like laundry detergent or deodorant online. So part of the fun was in telling that story about how consumers shop. We were educating on why we should talk about cereal online when consumers aren’t going to complete the transaction online. We had to justify the opportunity there.”

From there, Anna’s role focused on building from the ground up. She worked on Target’s essentials business collaborating with CPG heavy hitters like Unilever and P&G. “We were trying to build that business and create that relationship. So we’d focus on getting answers to questions like, ‘What would it take for us to set up toilet paper as a SKU on Target.com?’ It was a really fun time to build from the ground up.”

Pivoting to retail media

The formative years at Target helped Anna grow skills not just in building but in stakeholder management, both internally and externally. On the internal side, she was educating on how consumers think about channels and media. Externally, it was about bringing their brand voice to life, but with the lens of the retailer. It’s the Venn diagram of consumer brand and retailer where the magic comes in.”

After nearly eight years at Target, Anna was recruited to help grow Best Buy’s retail media arm. In her tenure there, which is going on nine (almost ten) years now, she’s helped shape Best Buy’s media strategy, working across in-store, digital, connected TV, and new test channels.

“Retail media nowadays is really commerce media. It’s that intersection of where consumers are consuming content and buying. We’re continuing to look into and test data to learn as much as we can on how to best reach our customers as their needs evolve. The real value prop is the first party data, the audiences, the ability to reach people that you want to reach. Retailers and commerce companies have a lot of first party data that they use in a very privacy compliance way. So there’s a big opportunity to tell that story and help brands solve their business problems.”

Anna said while there’s a natural place for products that brands sell, there’s an often-overlooked space for products brands don’t sell.

“Think about the fast food industry. They’re looking for ways to reach consumers and at Best Buy, we know a lot about our customers so we can say where they might over index with a specific brand. That allows brands to lean in different ways with various product categories. Across industries, that presents a lot of opportunity.”

A standout campaign

Last year, Best Buy did a brand relaunch and launched a brand differentiator campaign. The idea came when the company learned that customers were doing a lot of their own research, which lead Best Buy to evolve the concept of how they bring expertise to their customers. 

“We found that blue shirts still are valuable experts but sometimes people come in and they don’t need them to be the expert because they’ve done their own homework. So these insights culminated into the idea of helping our customers take what they love to the next level,” she said.

There was a full funnel campaign and a media partnership with NBCU. Since football season is big for Best Buy, they did custom content with NBC Sunday Night Football host Mike Tirico and Gram, Best Buy’s hologram. It was an outside-the-box approach that paid off.

“It drove intent to shop, it drove lift in brand perception. And one of our goals was to talk about our assortment which also saw a lift. So it was a fun one,” Anna said. “We learned a ton about how we can lean in on media partnerships and how they can help us break through in really unique ways.”

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Advice and takeaways

1) Be as clear as possible about strategy.

Anna said the team at Best Buy has a clear strategy and goals for the enterprise that everyone is aligned on. And she believes that level of direction helps her team stay hyper-focused and gives her the ability to lead with clarity.

If you asked your team what the purpose of your company is, what would they say? Would you get the same answer from everyone? If not, consider how you can get your team or your org at large aligned to the same heading. It will make it easier for everyone to know when to lean in and when to lean out on things that don’t align with your strategy.

2) Build the team you need and trust them.

As a VP, Anna said her job is, “leading, guiding, building strong partnerships (inside and outside of the company), and asking good questions.” One of the most important aspects of leadership to her is hiring good people who can help bring the work to life.

No matter how many people you’re managing or leading, consider the expertise you have throughout your team. Identify gaps and hire people who can fill them. Then give them the trust and clarity to do their best work.

3) Test, test, and keep testing.

From media partnerships to airlines, Anna’s team has been busy at work testing. They’re learning how they can reach consumers, how they can stand out—getting answers to the near-constant questions marketers ask themselves.

Look at what tests your team has planned for H2. Will they give you all the pertinent learnings you’re looking to leverage this year? If not, explore where and how you can fill in the gaps with additional tests. Venture into new channels and see what you find. 

Make your next move: Whether you’re planning a big brand moment or rethinking your media strategy, Vendry helps you find the right agency partner to pull it off. Fast matches. Vetted talent. Zero cost. Get started.