Cheese works.
The campy, kitschy antics that define the advertising campaigns of companies like Bob’s Discount Furniture and Crazy Bruce’s Liquors might invite an eye roll or two.
But their commercials are having an impact on viewers, and they are helping the Connecticut companies that air them to flourish. Even veteran advertising pros like William D. Field can’t deny the power of anti-establishment advertising.
“The Bob’s Discount Furniture, Crazy Bruce and even Stew Leonard’s ads are so bad they’re good,” said Field, president of Mintz & Hoke, Greater Hartford’s second largest ad agency. “They make an emotional connection with their customers. But at the same time they wouldn’t win any awards. For Bob, Bruce and Stew, it is all about sales. ‘Come on down’ works.”
Norwalk-based Stew Leonard’s, which was dubbed the “Disneyland of dairy stores” by the New York Times, has built its entire business around cheese — both literally and figuratively. The stores feature singing animatronic livestock, a concept typically reserved for Chuck E. Cheese.
The company’s TV ads pit owner Stew Leonard head to head with one of the store’s cows, Roseanna. As Leonard is bumped and battered by the camera-shy cow, he tries in vain to tout the store’s products. Roseanna’s uncooperative attitude ultimately leads to the tagline: “We apologize. Our cows make great milk, but not great commercials.”
Touting Unbeatable Deals
Bob’s Discount Furniture TV ads feature owner and founder Bob Kaufman and his price-slashing cohort, Cathy Poulin, who is also his public relations director. Typically, Kaufman, clad in jeans and a polo shirt, lounges on budget furniture and claims the competition is “busted” by his unbeatable deals.
Poulin eggs him on, urging him to “tell it like it is.”
Their grins are huge, and their intentions are clear: if you shop at Bob’s, you’ll get the best deal around.
“Our success has paralleled the growth of the ad campaign,” said Kaufman, who began airing the ads shortly after he opened the business in 1991.
Each year, Kaufman said, the company decides on a target sales volume. Then it devotes a set percentage of that to advertising. So the more its TV ads air, the more money the company is making. Kaufman operates 29 stores in seven states, including 10 that have opened in past two years.
As the commitment to ads has grown, Kaufman has added an in-house production studio in Manchester. At first it was “rudimentary.” Five years later, he went digital, all state of the art. Now an innovative ad department, it has seven full-time employees and is capable creating of both claymation and animation commercials.
“The biggest insult you can give me is that you’re bored by them,” Kaufman said.
The spokesman schtick is a tricky one to pull off, said Field of Mintz & Hoke, and corporate leaders rarely have the talent. But some do, like popcorn giant Orville Reddenbacher or Dave Thomas of Wendy’s.
Kaufman’s personal hero is Frank Perdue, of Perdue chicken fame. People know the man and the name, and that means millions of advertising dollars were well spent.
Crazy Bruce Sensation
Another local store owner who’s risen to celeb status is “Crazy Bruce” Goldberg, the man behind Crazy Bruce’s Liquors. The business started as a small, one-man operation in West Hartford. Now it has 40 employees at 18,000-square-foot locations in West Hartford and Bristol.
Crazy Bruce keeps his ads simple and low-cost. He is the talent, writing and singing songs about his amazing liquor deals. A pianist comes in to accompany Bruce, and there’s one guy behind the camera.
“These are bare bones spots. No actors and or elaborate sets,” said Field. “They probably do their own makeup.”
Robert Kursman, owner of Kursman Advertising, the firm that’s helped create the Crazy Bruce ads since 1976, said he believes his client is an advertising genius.
Though you’d hardly know it from the ads, Goldberg retired last November, selling the 44-year-old business to Mark Wilson, a local entrepreneur.
The transition has been very quiet and very gradual. The store’s name hasn’t changed, and Crazy Bruce is under contract to appear in a set number of new commercials.
“We felt that he had a very successful business,” Wilson said. “We didn’t want to upset the apple cart in any way until we have a better handle on what our customers want.”
But the TV ads provide customers a hint of the changeover by including Wilson in cameo roles. They had considered something more “Monty Python-esque,” Wilson said, like having a keg roll over on Crazy Bruce.
But in the end, they decided to keep it subtle. In one of the latest commercials, Wilson appears in the background, square dancing while Crazy Bruce belts out a new country western tune.
