The entertainment retailer has opted to shift the bulk of its adspend away from standard advertising towards leveraging its seven million-strong customer database.
The move is part of a broader strategy to stave off increasing competition from the major supermarkets and take on market leader HMV.
MVC previously used Roose & Partners as its advertising agency.
"Our mission is not to be a trendy brand, but to understand what really motivates our customers," said MVC's marketing director Louise English. "Heresy will work on our complete brand proposition, but the key strengths to us are its CRM capabilities."
Part of the brief will be to overhaul MVC's membership card scheme. It plans to expand the scheme by linking up with third parties to incentivise MVC customers with special offers such as concert tickets and film previews.
The retailer is also aiming to increase the proportion of sales through its web site mvc.co.uk, as well as StreetsOnline, which it acquired last year.
MVC currently has 89 stores across the UK and holds 6% of the entertainment retail market. It was demerged from retail group Kingfisher last July and is now part of the Woolworths group. English said TV advertising would be confined to a pre-Christmas campaign.
Heresy, which is part of the Chime group, picked up the business in a pitch against Proximity and KLP Euro RSCG.
"MVC's realised its best interests lie in forming closer relationships with its existing customers, and we're keen to make it pay off," said Shaun McIlrath, Heresy's creative director, who led the pitch with former BT head of advertising Tim Patten.
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