“Their marketing department, the entire group that supported this, should be walked out of corporate. This idiot move may have destroyed them.”
84 Lumber is a privately held company. The daughter of the founder is the president. The president claims she was actively involved in the development of the ad and she approved it in final form. It can therefore be assumed it reflects the views of the owners.
Consider that many of 84 Lumber’s customers are small contractors who are economically dependent on cheap foreign immigrant labor. A rapidly growing number of small contractors in the building trades are illegal immigrants or children of illegals.
Smaller regional companies, competing with large national organizations such as Lowes and Home Depot, tend to be more customer service oriented and nimble than their big bureaucratic competition. It may be 84 Lumber’s marketing team and management perceive their customer base to be strong supporters of open borders and the free flow of poor migrants into the US seeking low wage jobs. If so the ad was appropriate for the target audience.
Just as the owners have the freedom to use company funds to advertise as they wish, customers have the freedom to support the company with their dollars or not. Over the next few weeks 84 Lumber will no doubt learn if this commercial enhances business or results in a loss of sales. If the building trades in my community are reflective of the regions of the country served by 84 Lumber, the ad was likely well received by its customers and potential customers.
I will have to see what other references I have but judging by their FB page, if they have not shut down comments, they were getting burned alive. I thought I read the commercial tested negatively with previewing audiences but they went with it all the same. But yeah, we’ll see what the real opinion is ina few months.