To Save You The Hassle

Here is The complete guide to 'The Apprentice 2011', saving you the bother of watching it yourself.

The Key Contestants:

1. Jack Cocksure - An over confident dipshit who speaks in nothing but managing consultancy speak. Likely to say such phrases as: "There's no place for weakness in business."

2. Samantha Bitchslap - A spiteful talentless bitch who thinks she can be in Alan Sugar's job within 6 months despite having no leadership or people skills whatsoever. Most likely to say "That's not my fault."

3. Ian Wankington - An arrogant arse-wipe of a sub-species of human being with all the vision of a mole with sunglasses on digging a particularly deep hole. Slept his way to the lower-middle. Most likely to say "The difference between us is that I get things done."

4. Helena Myopic - An obsessive worker who suffers from total tunnel vision. Unable to see the bigger picture in anything, she stumbles from one crisis to the next. Most likely to say "But I sold more than her!"

5. Mark 'Marky' Markson-Martins - Posh snob who thinks that running daddy's company without burning down the building makes him the next Richard Branson. Has total contempt for anyone not earning over £100k a year, and near-total contempt for anyone earning under £500k a year... despite the fact he earns £50k at daddy's business. Most likely to say "Hi daddy, do you know Alan?"

6. Wai Dontue Shatup - A private school grad who talks, and talks, and talks, and talks. Appears to only be able to listen if the other person is talking about her, or offering her something. No business acumen whatsoever, but happy to flirt with anyone powerful. Most likely to say "Hi Ian, I like your tshirt."

7. Michael Norton - Smart guy, works hard but diligently. Makes good decisions and gets on well with everyone. Most likely to say "Well done guys."

The Teams

Blue Sky Doing - This team will argue about everything, fail to make any key decisions and flail their way violently through the weeks.

Team Touch Base - This team will be totally useless apart from the efforts of Michael to organise and single handedly run everything.

The Results

Week 1 - Blue Sky Doing cause a small part of South London to explode while baking cupcakes. Suralan fires Harrington Smyth III of Touch Base for parking in his space in the car park.

Week 2 - Blue Sky Doing forget to do the task after Wai and Ian start flirting during breakfast. Suralan fires Harrington Smyth III of Touch Base for failing to remove his car from his space.

Week 3 - Blue Sky Doing inadvertently cause the Large Hadron Collider to create a small black hole after trying to sell baby clothes to the women at CERN. Suralan doesn't fire anyone after Henry 'Jesus' Poncington disappears to the other side of the universe.

Week 4 - Blue Sky Doing cause a plague of locusts to hit Scotland after trying to setup a stall selling Haggis. Suralan fires Dick Dickson of Touch Base for having not bought an Amstrad Computer back in 1992.

Week 5 - Blue Sky Doing accidentally cause Elvis to come back from the dead whilst trying to sell shovels. Suralan fires Sally Critch of Touch Base after she put too much sugar in Karen Brady's tea.

Week 6 - Touch Base win a £10m contract with Google after Michael's hard work and vision. Suralan fires Michael for being the kind of bloke no one ever notices.

Week 7 - Blue Sky Doing manage to move Harrington Smyth II's car, and win this week's challenge. Suralan decides to fire Mark, but later on changes his mind after a mysterious phone call, and fires Helena once he manages to get a word in edgeways.

Week 8 - Blue Sky Doing are murdered violently after several members of the advertising community see their attempt at selling their new line of vodka.

Week 9 - Everyone stops caring which of these irritating bastards will get their TV job. Suralan fires all of them except Jack Cocksure who wins by default because of his "confident attitude in the sales process".

The Moral

If everyone in business was like the stupid motherfuckers on this TV show then there would be no need for marketing or advertising because nothing good would ever get made again. I'll probably still watch it though...

A step in the right direction

There are many brands that feel cold and alien. Look particularly at some of the financial and banking brands, multi-billion dollar institutions yet they have no connection or relevance to the vast majority of people. There are plenty of business and management brands that fall into the same trap.

If you wish to see an example of how to instantly humanise and improve the perception of your brand, look no further than the 10000 women project being run by Goldman Sachs.

A five year project providing business education and guidance to 10000 female entrepreneurs who otherwise would not be able to access that kind of training. It feels like a warm and genuine piece of community work from a brand that has usually felt blank to me.

Not only that, but I take away from the video a better sense of what Goldman Sachs feels like as a company; as well a strong perception of accessibility and friendliness. The opposite of how I pictured the brand not ten minutes ago.

"No country will ever achieve its' full potential if half of its' talent pool is stymied or under-represented" - Too right.

10000 Women

(found at BrandKarma)

Edgar Watson Howe (1894-1956)

"Doing business without advertising is like winking at a girl in the dark. You know what you're doing, but nobody else does."

Super Simplicity

Simplicity is a virtue that is too often ignored in advertising.

It is however, no coincidence that many of the great campaigns we treasure are those which are simple at heart. They may have big budgets and expensive filmography; but the concept is easy to understand.

Sony's Bravia ads. Big budget, elaborate visuals; but a clear as day message: Colour like no other.

Its so much easier for people to remember, and act upon simple ideas. Which is why I love the work of Julian Burton. A guy who goes into big companies and helps the workforce understand the strategy and direction of the company through painting.

Its wonderful stuff.

Maybe that should be an ad test. If you can't paint the idea, it shouldnt be made.

(thanks to the wonderful 33 Thoughts by BDO Stoy Hayward)


Dont forget to vote in post of the month - below!

Leveraging the Proactive Mindset to Help the Bottom Line

ARGH! What is it about certain business people and a complete failure to understand the English language? Cynic Rob posted on this, and it really needs further discussion.

So many businesses send communications that are full of management buzzwords, jargon and completebullshit. It's like Gus Hedges is running corporate communications...

99% of Business to Business contacts I see are PURE bullshit. Its like many businesses seem to think that other businesses only appreciate selling on an absolute blatant hard-sell level.

A perfect example is investment ads. They always look and sounds ibloodydentical (not a new apple product..).

Jeez. Business people are just like normal people but much harder worked. The very LAST thing they want is to use a dictionary to translate your shitty cold-call email for a service they probably dont need or are already getting for less money than you charge (because all your jargon filled emails make your company think it is better than anybody else).

I write for over 15,000 small business people and they always go for the simply written, easy to digest things.

Make it simple and they spend more time thinking about whether they need your product instead of spending time trying to understand your wording.