Apparently, Best Buy thinks Silicon Valley inventors make the best spokespeople, and are willing to bank on that at this year’s Super Bowl.

Best Buy’s Super Bowl advertisement, which will appear during the third commercial break of the 1st quarter of Sunday’s big game, will feature tech inventors like camera phone pioneer Phillippe Kahn and Instagram co-founder Kevin Systrom. Although well informed readers like yourself might recognize those names, it’s safe to say that the general public may not.

This marks a definite shift from previous years of advertising. You remember Best Buy’s big Super Bowl spot from last year right? The Ozzy Osbourne / Justin Bieber commerical that has Ozzy wondering “what the f*ck’s a Bieber?” Here it is, to jog your memory:

“Big brands like to hire celebrities,” Best Buy Marketing Chief Drew Panayiotou told Bloomberg. “We looked at everyone from George Clooney to Stephen Colbert. We believe the inventors are more than enough. I give those 125 million viewers a lot of credit. I think they’ll appreciate the story.”

Best Buy was all set to air a celeb-heavy ad, common practice for the high-cost real estate of a Super Bowl commercial. But apparently, the outpouring of tributes to the late Steve Jobs that seemed to dominate the latter part of 2011 changed something. It spurred the idea of a tech-themed commercial.

The ad is not meant to be funny – focusing more on the story of how technology is brought to the consumer. It’ll be going up against Budweiser and M&Ms in its block.

Best Buy will be fighting in a Super Bowl ad space filled with blockbuster film trailers, Seinfeld reunions, vampires, Star Wars dogs, and a Ferris Bueller rehash starring Matthew Broderick. Will it make an impact? We’ll just have to wait and see.

[Image Courtesy Trendy Gamers]