Hey Connecticut, Is There Something Off About ‘Little Bob?’

According to "THE WEB" Bob's Discount Furniture "is an American furniture store chain headquartered in Manchester, Connecticut. The company opened its first store in 1991 in Newington, Connecticut and is ranked 12th in sales among United States furniture stores according to Furniture Today's list of Top 100 Furniture Stores."

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But everyone in Connecticut already knows that. There is not one Nutmegger that does not know about Bob's and most CT people have at least one piece of Bob's furniture in their home. The company's founder Bob Kaufman was all over our TV and radio stations for decades. We knew his face and voice very well, like too well.

Eventually Bob faded from the ads, according to 2021 report from Q97.9:

Bob was no longer being seen in his commercials. He was suddenly replaced by a puppet version of himself called Little Bob that has now become the mascot of the Bob's Discount Furniture. What happened? A few things came into play here. In 2014, Bob's Discount Furniture was acquired by a private investment firm, and Bob went into retirement. Who could blame him? But why not keep doing the commercials?

"Little Bob '' is a cartoon likeness of the real Bob that they've used in the ads since Big Bob bounced. I stopped paying attention to Bob's universe a long time ago and then I saw a new ad recently that stopped me in my tracks. There was "Little Bob '' looking just like Big Bob but he didn't sound ANYTHING like him.

This bummed me out, am I alone? We talked about this on a recent edition of the I-95 Morning Show and before you listen to this I want you to consider that I am a Bob fan.

First, apologies to the current voiceover guy, you're not bad at voiceovers so I want to make that clear. You're just not Bob and you're not close. I say this with all of the kindness I can muster, we can do this better.

My business (radio) is littered with talented voiceover people that are out of work. I'm begging the executives at Bob's Discount Furniture to reach out and let me put you in touch with some of them or I can do the Bob voice myself. There is also a third option that does not make me look like a jerk who is trying to get someone fired, we can work with your VO guy to train him to speak like Big Bob.

Bob built a brand, shouldn't we keep that brand as consistent as possible? I think people in Connecticut care about this but I could be wrong. Let's find out.

Check this out, the original Bob

And 2024 Bob

Something's missing.

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