Recently, I've been looking at television advertisements with the
intent of understanding the company's understanding of the strengths
of their own products.

It seems the commercials that have a very clear, simple message i.e.
ones that display one product or feature are the easiest to
understand. Moreover they help the viewer figure out how to tell their
friends (most important for traction) and the values of the company
(important for retention). However, very few companies can accomplish
this task (which is surprising). Even when external ad companies
create the ad, its very easy to tell what each company thinks of
itself.

The way to tell a company's self-perception based on the commercial:
+ What's the product/feature advertised?
+ What problem is it solving?
+ What is the benefit of their solution?
+ Who cares about this problem? (The demographic of actors in the commercial)
+ The emotion the actors display in the commercial.
The story the commercial tells is what the company wants the viewer to
know of itself. It relates to its intended person with the problem
felt by its actors (which should look like and relate to its
demographic). The benefit is how they alleviate the problems and
reduce their negative emotion (transition of emotion through the
commercial of the actors).

The less you can deduce from the commercial, the less the company
knows itself. The argument that an external company could introduce
noise, but the company should have a way of managing expectations
consistently and enforcing certain guidelines. Additionally, if you're
unable to articulate and teach others a concept then you are less
educated in the topic than you think. Finally, the piece you're unable
to deduce is exactly the piece the company as a whole is ignoring or
cares less about.

Any company's sole purpose is to improve the lives of its customers.
But if they have a less than clear idea of its customers or product,
the less focus they can put into keeping their customers thrilled.
Additionally, they'll spin their wheels finding the problem.

Bottom Line: Companies' marketing materials are used to educate their
customers. But they can always teach you about how much you actually
know about yourself. The harder it is for you to teach, the more you
need to learn about your customer. The best case - your material is
used by your customers to teach/convert others.