Furniture Factory Freaks Out

We phoned Johnny Mizell, vice president in charge of marketing for Furniture Factory Outlet in Muldrow, Okla., for our cover story on corny local TV commercials. Basically, he went bonkers.

The Business Journal attempted to include in our report the chain’s successful ad campaign, which features an older couple named “Earl and Edna” mispronouncing the company’s name. But Mizell freaked and said “there’s no need” to talk about the firm’s advertising strategy because it’s basically to “get as many people in the store and hopefully sell as much affordable furniture as possible.” (Very savvy, we thought).

We intended to discuss how Mizell has skillfully identified his client base and created a campaign that has made his firm synonymous with discount furniture. But he apparently thought it would be more productive to yell at us.

Mizell became especially irritated when we asked for Earl and Edna’s real names. Based on his response, we assume they’re in the Federal Witness Protection Program. But at least we were able to identify a great prospect for a very patient and good P.R. firm.

Furniture Factory Outlet has 22 stores in the four-state area.