Bob chose a commercial layout many years ago and he ran with it. Any commercial you see on Tv from Bob's Discount Furniture is more or less the same each and every time. There are few changes between them and the two most common concepts are that his prices are lower than the competition and that his products are better quality. In this particular commercial, he is pushing both ideas.
When a customer goes in to buy a piece of furniture they are looking for the cheapest one while still retaining the quality of the piece. With this in mind it makes sense that Bob and his advertising crew have capitalized on this logical thinking, yet that is all they have, straight logical thinking. This leaves little to, in this case, no room for creativity in the commercial. No thought was put into this ad. They put the new product into their commercial layout and this is what came out of the other side. It gets the job done as an ad but with no creativity this makes for a forgetful commercial.
Anyone can think to put the product and the president of the company in front of a white background with a script resembling the work of a group of 5th graders. Some commercials are made by the local part of a company, which would explain why the commercial looks so mediocre but Bob's Discount Furniture chain is still expanding today and their commercials need to grow with it. Right now Bob's commercials fall into the local category and they need to improve to enter the national category. A category and a level in terms of their company that they want to be in at some point in the near future.
I should mention that putting the companies CEO, president, or any other director in the commercial is not a bad idea, it worked very well for Sprint last year, but the way they do it in this example is terrible. Bob is the face of the company and a viewer can't even see his actual face in this ad, the only face you can see is his cartoonish face in the lower right corner. The cartoon is even blurry at best, rendering having the face of the company a meaningless addition to this commercial. With only 15-30 seconds in an ad, every piece needs to be important and stand out, the mental image that needs to be put into the viewers minds can't even be seen, let alone remembered.
Giving this commercial a score higher than a 3 would be disrespectful to even the commercials that have/will earn/ed a 4 or 5. There is no creativity, no way to remember it and it feels that it was thrown together in a single weekend. Judging by Bob's finances, there is no reason why they should be skimping on their commercials. Advertising is one of the most important things for a company and their revenue can very well suffer in the long run if they do not invest the money now. It is clear that they have made an example of what there commercials have been and they want to keep the layout the same for creating their long lasting image. The only problem is they have settled on a substandard idea of a good company image.
-Adam
