Why do some companies consciously look crappy?

Lots of reasons.
*Some companies don’t see the value in good creative, and aren’t willing to pay for it, or don’t understand the value-add.
*Depending on the product or the industry, the customer base, in testing, perceive certain campaigns as being wasteful.
*Lots of businesses don’t treat marketing as a separate business function from sales, and sales controls the marketing/advertising budget, and the creative decisions.

Quite frankly, I don’t understand the examples you gave. Tamron’s ad is not ugly; it has a business-to-consumer focus. The pages are cleand and easy to use. Canon’s site, on the other hand, appears to be business-to-business focused. It is not user-friendly, but rather has too much information packed on the home page. Added to that, I tried to link to the CanonUSA site, and the link didn’t work. Coming from 20 years in marketing and advertising, I perceived Tamron to have the better designed site.

Well maybe the main canon page was not a good example, but in general the advertising material for canon always uses top quality photos, whereas the ones for tamron are really faulty (blury, unsaturaded, low contrast). It is that lack of polishing in their photos and design that I am refering to.

I think that some companies downplay their image to maintain their appeal to a certain demographic that can only afford to pay so much.
For example: walking into an Old Navy store feels different (more affordable) than walking into Banana Republic. However these are all owned by the same holding company.
In the case of Tamron, I think they would benefit from having photos of higher critical value on display because it would make their image more appealing. I don’t agree with you that its about the money being spent into marketing because these are things that one designer can change if they’re asked to do it.

Yes, tigran, you’re right. It’s really funny what comes out of consumer focus groups. Several years ago, we designed a new way to deliver health plan enrollment material to members. It included a plastic file folder to keep receipts in, a disk with an application to manage costs, brochures and tips to better understand and use your health insurance. It was really nice. Cost was about 75 cents per unit. We focus group tested it in 5 cities. The result was the same: “We know you’re making too much money. Lower our premiums.” We dropped the concept and the campaign around it.

It’s also interesting that in a down market, most companies cut marketing and advertising exependitures. You would think it would be the opposite.

In my opinion, some companies just don’t need to. Their products sell themselves. Sony comes to mind (even though they do entice with their marketing, depending on what is being sold). Canon is known for its lenses and even though their camera was a different style that I didn’t like as much as another, I went with the name/expertise. Advertising never was a part of the process.

For years Microsoft’s website was hideous, and I couldn’t stand going there. It was confusing and ugly. I guess just like their OS! The website is looking a little better now, maybe they’ve again borrowed some ideas from Apple?

LOL! @forestGeek they just hired the Apple programmers that Apple layed off. Trust me I know someone.