Can't... stop... laughing!

The more I think about the Actress' huff, the more I think it was a set-up -- that she was instructed or encouraged to behave that way to test the apprentices' ability to handle the situation. Similar behavior from bit players has happened before -- like the whole "losing Jessica Simpson" thing that Kwame had to deal with, which I suspect was also engineered to provide drama. Nothing wrong with that, of course.

Re: SPOILED ACTRESS

Trust me on this one: There is no other kind.

I used to stage manage for this thing locally, and I also volunteer for this other thing locally, and trust me:

I once had the fucking, BRITNEY SPEARS IMPERSONATOR, complain to me about all the ways I wasn't kissing her ass.

Because she was, you know, the BRITNEY SPEARS IMPERSONATOR.

From my perspective, DivaGrrl, or whatever we've decided to call her, was not that bad.

ChiRugby, Bren's mother is one of the most successful real estate agents in Tennessee. Tennessee, especially Nashville and Memphis, has some very wealthy people. Rich people are flocking to Tennessee because it's one of the states that has no sales tax. Bren is very wealthy. Rich people tend to have indoor plumbing. The fact that he's an ignorant coward has nothing to do with his monetary status. Some of the richest people in the world are some of the biggest morons, eg, Paris Hilton, Donald Trump. Don't let Bren hide behind his cornpone accent while he tries to convice people that he just crawled out of the Cracker Barrel floorboads. He knows exactly what he is doing.

I still wonder why people think that Bren stood up for his idea. When did that happen? He said in the BR, flat-out, that his "moral values" were against the ad. That is running as far from your idea as you possibly can, trying to scapegoat easy targets to make yourself seem innocent.



It's like the old Chorus Line song - Tits & Ass. He will laud anything which turns him on. Gay men don't give him wood, so he wants nothing to do with them. This is a "man" (I use that term loosely) who is desperate to be validated by everyone around him, to still appear young and virile (still calling himself Donnie when he's well into middle-age, the bad plastic surgery, pretending he is a "rebel" and an "outsider" when that really just means most business people loathe him, bluffing through a fake media campaign for the mayor of NYC when everyone knew he had no chance, the constantly erect nipples and tight shirts), and having hot women bump and grind for him is a surefire way for him to endorse an ad. If Erin had imported the Coors Light Twins and had them mudwrestle in slow motion, Magna would have won. I have no doubt in my mind.

Bazzerz, you said all this so much better than I have. Douchebag encouraged Magna to go wild and then berated them for doing what he asked. To expect anything better out of such amateurs was ridiculous. The double standards of Trump and his dirty old men cadre never end. All during that I had flashbacks to the brutal way that Trump and the other cronies treated Amy once she got to the final 4. These people are VERY, VERY uneasy being around anything which does not revolve around old, rich, straight, white men.

Tenderfoot
I so totally absofu#@inloutly agree with you. The actress was told to do that. I'm sure that she was given lines to read.

Bren: I looooved the way he handled The Actress, but I'm a sucker for charming men with southern or new england accents.

Plus, I've been married to a wonderful man for 9 years, and I know that my husband has TONS of experience mollifying an angry woman. I din't think that comment was sexist, just realistic. I'm now offically a Bren fan.

Kristen:
Her boyfriend's a director? So does that make her a director by injection?!?

She needs to lay the F**k off of the Botox.

MAC cosmetics called. They said that you're not supposed to wear their
ENTIRE fall line All At Once. Those little jars of pigment are supposed to last
months or years, not WEEKS.

Kristen is just a bully, plain and simple.

Audrey: She has tons of what they used to call "horse sense." I like me some
Audrey.

Re: Spoiled Actresses

The smaller they are, the bigger they think they are!

Hee. Chris is scary, but I admit that I find his inappropriately loud and emphatic comments funny. I could just see him on some kind of task involving children. "Play with the toy, you little bastards! PLAY WITH THE TOY!" And then when his team lost because the kids found him so scary, he'd go into the boardroom and say "It wasn't my fault, Mr. Trump! They WOULDN'T PLAY WITH THE TOY!" while snapping a pencil in half with one hand.

If I'd been Erin, I would have sent that actress packing in a hurry. It's not like there weren't thousands of others lined up ready to take her place on a moment's notice. And really, as long as the actress was getting paid for her waiting time, I don't see what she was complaining about. Next time, take a book.

I thought both commercials were terrible, but I thought Magna did better with the overall assignment. Theirs at least felt like a short film (albeit a bad porn one), while Net Worth's just came across as a not particularly original commercial.

But, do you need to be told what the target demographic for Dove Body Wash is? It seems pretty obvious to me. For the most part, these commercials are going to be run during female-heavy viewing times - daytime TV. And daytime TV = kids will be around to see it. I can't imagine any parent, gay or straight, being comfortable with little ones seeing the cucumber stroking scene.

Yes, Donny D. said he wanted an edgy, big idea, but as a poster upthread said, that doesn't have to mean sexual. Even if you do use a sexual theme, it still has to work for the target audience (i.e., the KY warming liquid commercials). Magna was so far off the mark in so many ways.


I don't know... I think Audrey showed some mighty big "disloyal" behavior when she said she would fire Kristen over someone from the other team. I cringed when she said that - I was certain that would get her fired. I think Trump had already decided that he wanted Kristen gone, because it was okay to be disloyal to her.

I agree. Marketing 101: know your target audience. Either they should have researched/asked about it, or just made some assumptions. But I don't think either team mentioned it once. And I don't think it's DD's responsibility to give them marketing lessons.

That said, I also think it was a stupid task, and ridiculous to expect a bunch of talentless real estate agents to produce a quality commercial. However, if either team was truly worthwhile they could have done something creative within the low-budget framework and still reached their target audience.

I also think the bitchy actress was a setup. She hardly seemed that angry to me and all it took was a little gentle begging from Bren to calm her down enough to stroke the cucumber. At least she did that well. But if it was me I would have pulled a Donald on her and said YOU'RE FIRED. BITCH.

I don't know... I thought Trump was trying to unearth a reason to fire Kristen and led that question to Audrey for that purpose. You can tell from the wording of his questions "Erin, why shouldn't I fire anyone from your team" and "Audrey, would you fire Kristen or someone from the other team?"

Was Magna off the mark or were Deutsch and Dove? Magna probably knew that Deutsch had heartily approved of sleazy, pornographic ad campaigns for past "respectable" companies (like Marquis Jets), and they probably also felt that if Dove was going to have a reality show design their new ad, then Dove was saying it was OK to take big risks. There were no guidelines, no brakes for Magna or Net Worth. Going by Deutsch's past behavior, they had no idea he would throw such a hissy fit over their ad. To tell amateurs to go wild and then tear them apart when they follow your orders is one of the most self-righteous and piddling attitudes possible. If Douchebag wants acceptable ads (like, say, women in bondage gear selling Dove soap -- he'd love that) than he should either paint a clear picture for contestants or ask Dionne Warwick to ship all those old Psychic Friend employees over to Apprentice 4.

MY main problem with this week: There was no objective way (burgers sold; surveys filled; apartment rental prices; restaurant profits; etc.) to determine the winner.
I think Trump should fire the most deserving, and if that leaves one team with only one person standing versus 5, so be it.
IOW, I think Erin should have been fired for bringing up the irrelevant "We are fam-i-leee" aspect, and I think Kristen (whom I do not like) should have said, "They may be 'family', Mr. Trump, but so were Ma Barker and her boys. Our commercial may have fallen a bit flat in the joke department, but wouldn't that be better than soft porn? Washing a face isn't better than stroking a cucumber?"

Make Trump address the completed task, not anything he did NOT see. Well, except that Kristen was quick to attack Tana. Okay, make that fire Erin AND Kristen. Think outside the box, Donald!

Bogus episode. As if Dove was about to use ANY ad these neophytes came up with.
And the word for Bren= "smarmy".

Oh, and about Erin's "family" BR tactic: Somewhere Danny and Verna are laughing.

Regarding so-called Spoiled Actress, I think I have a good perspective to weigh in from. As a theatrical company manager, I deal with the needs, concerns, complaints, and well-being of actors and other company members on theatrical productions. My philosophy of the job is that I don't have to agree with an actor's complaints, but I must listen to them and at least appear to hear what the actor is saying.

In this particular case, I think this woman had a very valid complaint. Erin's reaction (on the phone and in person) was basically, "So fucking what?" Bren understood that you cannot accomplish anything until you have your cast in a frame of mind that allows them to be productive, create the performance you want, and let things run smoothly. Had the upset actress been sent packing, the other two actors might have been pretty negative about whom they were working with/for.

FYI, I sincerely doubt this was a union commercial. Wouldn't a union commercial have -- oh, I dunno -- a union director, union crew, and union-commercial production values? This had fewer production values than a bad non-union local cable commercial.

I wonder if both teams were told (although we didn't see it) that they needed to include the imagery of cukes and green tea, or (at the very least) if DD really drummed into their heads that these ingredients were what set this product apart in the marketplace. It would certainly explain Magna's decision to build the entire commercial around said cuke.

In Season 1, Amy actually met with MarquisJet to feel them out and see how open they'd be to an out-there approach. Let's quote Miss Alli's recap:

I wonder if these teams would have been allowed access to Dove. On a related note: DreamCrusher, regarding whether DD should have been responsible for telling the teams about the target demo, I just wonder if he would have given up that info if one of the teams had gone to him (or to his staff) and ASKED for it.

I am not sure I agree that this is purely a female product, what with using St. Ives Apricot Body Scrub myself. But then, I'm a gay man (with about as much image as that pathetic guy from the Queer Eye for the Queer Guy ep, so it's not like I am the stereotype that Alex is seeming to be).

Heebiejeebie, it cracked me up when you kept calling the company and their product Dial in your post. It's Dove, not Dial, but there's something funny about having the damn thing shoved down our throats and still being able to be blissfully unaware of the product name. I kinda like that they didn't manage to sell you enough to even know who they were.

MAN, imagine him on the first task of Season 2 (Mattel Toys). Whee!

Last but not least: HATED the real Dove ad, except for the delightful Miss Piggy cameo.

Kristen could have said whatever she wanted, but she had behaved in such a vicious and tyrannical manner that nobody would have bought it. She was fired because of her crappy attitude and her passing the blame on everyone else, whereas Erin defended her team and defended her ad. Kristen never seemed to understand why her ad was not a masterpiece. She never owned up to her bullying being the reason the ad sucked. Besides, Net Worth's ad was just ugly. Seeing that man with all that gook on his face? I don't mean to be graphic, but for all the talk of "pornography" I thought that image was far more suggestive than Magna's. To me, it looked like someone had given him a porn style facial and he was wiping the goo off. Not only was that image disturbing for the product, the commercial itself was dismal. At least Magna's ad could have been improved with a few alterations. Kristen's ad was like that horrible "Buddy Bands" commercial from Saved by the Bell.



I don't remember Erin ever being overly critical of Danny. Erin's attitude towards Verna was crappy, but since one of the family members had threatened to quit and actually walked off the project at one point, clearly she wanted to leave the nest.

He doesn't know at this point that he's missing out on air-time, though. For all we know, he's doing lots of interviews, voice-overs, contributing etc, and it's not being shown. I wonder where the editors are going with this guy.

What was up with Tana in this one? Was that a cocktail dress she was wearing when she answered the phone, all deep-throat? And had she just stepped out of the shower when they got into the boardroom? Her hair looked like it hadn't been done at all.

I loved Trump's 'I'm heading over to my helicopter for a business trip'. You'd think someone who's been that wealthy for that long would be a bit less self-conscious about the whole thing.

Wearing costumes to do the pitch is a bad idea, folks. It reminds me of primary-school projects, when we'd colour the headings all special, put little stars and squiggles in all the white space and just generally go ta-dah! Childish and cheesy.

John is the man. I loved him being clear and calm with Kristen, refusing to speak to things he didn't witness. She's trying to tell him - this is the way it was, so just say that, okay? - and he's all, well, I'll tell Trump I did this and then you took over and you can say what happened after that because I wasn't there. Nice.

This is a Dove product they were selling, and anybody who has ever seen a Dove ad knows that Dove does not do risque' ads. I really don't think Donnie's comment to make it "edgy" meant to make it a John Holmes size cucumber ad. There didn't have to be guidelines, they should've researched the product if they'd never seen a Dove ad, then they'd know that porn & Dove just don't mix! Dove is not that racy!! I think Net Worth's idea had potential, until I saw the body wash on the guy's face. It looked like somebody's cucumber exploded on him. :)

Yeah but in the first season, Deutsch approved Protege's trashy, pornographic Marquis Jets ad campaign even though Marquis was not a sleazy organization and apparently were not thrilled with the campaign. So how were they supposed to know? Were they supposed to do what Dove wanted or what Douchebag wanted? He gave them very vague guidelines and then threw a fit when they didn't read his mind. Really, aside from the cucumber, there was nothing that wrong with the ad. This was something done by amateurs, something that could have easily been cleaned up. This was not the last commercial before the apocalypse or anything.

Megsy, you have a point, but I still wonder if players can sense that they aren't getting as much attention or focus as others in the suite. As for where the editors are going with him, I guess that he and Tara are going to get the Jessie treatment: Invisible until right before they're shown the door.

Kristen is an annoying, power-hungry horse's ass, but in her defense I have to ask: What is so darned funny about a marathoner suddenly breaking out in a soapy lather as he races toward the finish line? Maybe I don't have a sense of humor either, but I didn't think it was an amusing idea when John first suggested it. And if he and Craig thought the spot was supposed to humourous, what was up with that cheesy musical soundtrack they were preparing for the commercial? It wasn't the least bit whimsical.

I'm cynical enough to think that both teams were set up to fail, giving Trump an excuse to bring both teams into the board room and fire the PM whose team had the most members. It seems to me the producers have got to keep these teams evenly matched for as long as possible or the book smarts vs. street smarts premise of this season's show is imperiled too early. I'm already convinced that John from the street smarts team has this season's apprentice title in the bag.

I went grocery shopping on Wednesday and bought SoftSoap BodyWash (Vanilla-BrownSugar) because it was on sale and I had a coupon. Right next to it was a big bottle of SoftSoap BodyWash for Men. I don't know the fragrance, but it was purple. I guess you don't have to be a woman to use bodywash nowadays ;) Mr. Leetchnut uses Irish Spring Bars (it's for manly men, Hee!)

One of the things that slightly bothered me about the commercials was that there was no dialogue, just cheesy music. I thought it made both commercials a little creepier. With veggie porn, I would have like to see them cut back to the 'chef' and show her giving a little shrug, put the cucumber in her pocket and grab a bottle of Dove then leave. Why not take it more over the top then it already was? It was so bad anyway, it couldn't have made it worse. I guess I am just a perv.

One more thing. The whole Will and Grace reference made no sense to me. Will and Grace sucks. It was very funny the first couple of years, but now it's just not.

My only "acting" experience relates to being an assistant stage manager for a Guffman-esque theatre production, but honestly, I think Alfred Hitchcock's dictum applies here. When asked about working conditions on his set, he replies that he "never said that actors are cattle. [He] said they should be treated like cattle." Suck it up, dear. Sometimes you have to be patient.

Did anyone else think of the episode of the Simpsons, where Homer makes a dating video for Flanders, and insisted on using star-wipes for every cut--just the way the Marathon commercial used the same wipe for each cut.

I also get the idea that George was kind of poking at the sleeping crazy by asking Chris questions, hoping for another deranged outburst.

Nipples Douche was just an idiot. Adking for a "over the top" commercial, and complaining about some gay content? God, what do you expect? I'd go with the Magna commercial any day, mostly because at least there was the kernal of an idea that could be quite entertaining. It just needed some work.

Setting aside the Marquis Jet bit from Season 1, and the images that it conjured, I still believe that the ad concepts were not that bad - all they needed was more creative focus. All the money they spent on actors and models - is there a reason they couldn't have done the acting themselves, and found a guy at NYU Film School to direct?

With all the "Will and Grace" talk, perhaps Magna never noticed, but Grace has never fondled Will's cucumber in a dark kitchen. Had they really taken that show as a model, they would have played the ad for comedy, with more upbeat music. And turn on some lights, for crying out loud.

With only $10K (read earlier) and only 2 days of turnaround, could they really expect a Big Idea? Deutsch apparently had much more time, and all he could come up with was woman in heavy makeup - Dove - now she's clean Ooooh. But it works when compared to the Apprenti spots, mainly because it has better production values (I'm sure DD had more than 10 grand at his disposal). I'm sure if one of the teams had come up with that concept, it would have been rejected too.

It didn't matter if they had a state of the art studio (which I doubt). If I only know "record" and "zoom" on the camera, that's all you're getting in two days.

It would have been hysterical to see them fire her and send Bren out to the streets to see how many seconds it would take to find a willing "actress" ala Jay on Project Runway standing in the streets yelling, "Anyone want to model today?" when his model didn't show up. Hee! They missed a great opportunity there. For that matter, considering that the actress didn't really have to do any serious "acting" I'm surprised one of the women from the team didn't volunteer to do the role.


I agree. And at first I thought this is what they were going to do. IIRC in the advertising task in Season 1 when the women made the pornographic ads the team only had to come up with the "concept" and, I think, were partly involved with the photography. But they definitely had professional graphics people from Deutsch put the stuff together for them, and it was largely due to their expertise that the women won the task (well, that and the sucky idea by the men). So I don't understand why Deutsch couldn't have spared some people to help them out this time.


See, I think the actress had a legitimate point. Was she overly dramatic and full of herself about it? Yes. But I think the issue was not just that she sat around for a couple hours, because I'm sure that kind of thing goes on on the set a lot. But I think the problem was that for those two hours the actors had no idea what was going on. Were the producers coming, or not? Was the shoot still on? How long would it be before anyone came? How long would the shoot last? Was there a script for them to learn (as someone pointed out upthread)?, etc. I think that was much more of an issue than just someone being kept waiting. I would be mad too, regardless of whether I had anything else to do that day, because it's just a fundamental lack of respect.

That said, she didn't have to go all Liz Taylor about it either.


I don't know where you live, kwyjibo31, but I'm in OKC and we got the entire show just fine (at my house at least). Of course, I don't know what the Tulsa affiliates did.


See, IMO most of the apologies were along the lines of Yeah, OK, we're sorry, now would you shut up so we can get on with it? In other words, not very sincere. They didn't really seem to care that she'd been left waiting. I hate that kind of crap and thought it was right of her to try to force them to recognize how inconsiderate they were being. Of course, you could argue that Bren's apology really wasn't that sincere either, but he was the only one who at least acted like he was taking it seriously. I’m guessing that’s what she wanted more than anything. Although I’m not discounting the “she’s just trying to get more screentime” theory either.


Yeah, and I don't recall Deutsch calling them out for it and making them take off their scarves or anything. While I agree the chef outfits were over the top, it is true that the precedent of 'dressing up' has been set, and Deutsch has allowed it twice now, so it doesn't seem like the time to get all snotty about it. Of course, it might have helped if some of the women had worn low-cut tops and leaned over the table a lot.

Rhonda, reading your recap of the season 1 task, the more I think about this the more I'm starting to go along with the people who feel that this task was rigged for both teams to fail, because that would cause more "drama" (ie, shameless gimmicks). Even if the ads were crappy, much shoddier ideas have been approved in the past. Douchebag's reaction to the ads and the clunky setup beforehand (when Carolyn and George told him that this season had a great group) seemed rehearsed.

One more problem with the NetWorth commercial- at the end, the guy doesn't cross any sort of finish line. At the end of a marathon, the winner breaks a ribbon stretched across the course; it just looked like the guy suddenly stopped and thrust his bodywash into the air. It would have been simple to string a tape across the shot. Kristen not only has no sense of humor, she also apparently doesn't know how a race goes.

The only races she's ever participated in probably involved pitchforks, torches and angry mobs.

You don't pick (comb) out an afro wig while it's still on your head. Brother just "undid" his "sister locks" or "twists." I was wondering about the locks he was sporting, since it's not a very "corporate" look. Now we see Craig was actually sporting a more versatile "do," though an afro is still a bit over the top for Trump World. I'd guess that in his empire, The Donald reserves for himself the exclusive right to wear an "unconventional" hairstyle.

So far, Craig is pretty dull. Whether or not it's by design of the producers, I don't expect him to win. It'll be a tough balancing act for him to show leadership (if he possesses those qualities in abundance) and not be perceived as overbearing at the same time.

I had a strange sense of deja-vu watching this episode. Let's see... high-strung brunette control freak with drawn-on eyebrows bulldozes her way through an ad campaign, alienating everyone in the process.

Kristin = Maria on steroids.

There's always some specualtion that certain candidates are cast to act as difficult diversions or to create drama. Since this was an actual actress and we were told that from the start (and therefore it wouldn't look sneaky or unethical) maybe she was hired to play the part of a bitchy diva specifically to make things difficult?

Tegan Jovanka: (cool name, btw)


This is a really interesting question, and one I've love to hear former contestants speak to. I wonder if it's at all possible to get some idea of the spin being put on you in real-time, or whether this only becomes apparent on viewing the actual footage that gets aired?

Minor point, but I just have to ask. Did Alex say 'fortune favours the brave' or was the 'brave' substituted with another word? I am just curious to see if another Apprenti assaulted the English language. (I was housesitting an unspayed cat, and every ten seconds there was a high, pitched, ear piercing 'mrrrrooooooooooohrrrrrr'. Think Stacie Troll every 10 seconds.)

In any event, that statement about fortune and bravery may be true under some circumstances, but it isn't true on this show, and it seems to be pretty dicey in advertising, at least in North America.

Erin is definitely emerging as this year's Jennifer M. Despite her flakery, she's restrained in the boardroom, and makes her points pretty calmly (even when there's not a lot of substance). In the long run, board room histrionics count against you (I think).

If she could score with that model and relieve some of the 'Love Palace drought' induced sexual tension, she might just make it far.

Oh and Tara? Feel free to speak at any time.

Okay, after many months of lurking, this episode has finally driven me over the edge.

Can't. Hold. Back.

Must. Snark.

Why?

1) I work in advertising.
2) I have worked for Dove
3) I'm gayer than springtime
4) I'm tragically obsessed with reality TV. (And I know that doesn't make me unique here, but, still...)

I'd therefore like to thank Mark Burnett for the personalized edition of the show this week. I loved every agonizing minute of it.

All of my favorite things in one show. Homophobia! Bad advertising concepts! Donnie Deutsch and his amazing Man-Boobs (it's not just his nipples, people)! More Homophobia! Cucumber abuse! Did I mention the Homophobia?

Viewers of NBC were getting very mixed messages last night. Both Will & Grace and ER had strong pro-gay themes (Will and Jack protest an anti-gay country club, Carrie Weaver comes out to her fundamentalist birth mother). Then, sandwiched between this Mini Pride Festival is an episode of TA that implies that a gay themed advertisement is both inappropriate and offensive. Nice.

The Hair and The Man-Boobs can pretend that it was all the heavy handed cucumber fondling that they were uncomfortable with - but I'm sure that the idea that (Gasp!) gay sexuality (Horrors!) could be used to sell a body wash was what was wiggin' them out. I know some of you guys think that this was a vegetable based offense - but unless the cucumber rights people are going to march in protest, I think it's fair to presume that it was the much more controversial issue of homosexuality that had their panties in a bunch.

In fact, I'm pretty sure that they overdubbed Trump's line about most people finding the ad offensive to imply that he was outraged by the smutty use of phallic veg. I've a nasty feeling that he originally said that most people would find the gay content offensive, but that TPTB made him change it.

At least Chris was honest about what he found offensive. Insane, but honest.

Ah, Chris. That little outburst was the highlight of the show for me. Nothing more entertaining than watching a bigot dig his own grave.

I was just waiting for Alex to come out of the closet and confront them all. (Sigh...if only life were like Will & Grace). Loved the fact that he was given the task of helping the casting. After all, who better to choose gay-looking men than the man with Freddy Mercury's taste in jackets? I bet he was livid with Erin for hogging all the ab-soaping duties.

Interestingly, the UK had a very similar ad to Magna's show a few years ago. It was for Impulse (a perfumed body spray). Girl bumps into Generic Hunk in the street, drops her shopping. Generic Hunk helps pick up her fruit whilst grinning flirtatiously. Girl's hopes start to rise when...Ooops! Generic Hunk's boyfriend whisks him away, and girl realizes that he's not going to be squeezing her fruit any time soon. The tag-line is 'Men can't help acting on Impulse'. The implication is that the scent is so seductive that it can (almost) turn a gay man straight.

It was a successful campaign, and got a lot of press for being mildly controversial. I almost wonder if Bren saw it and just 'borrowed' the idea. It does prove that the idea itself is not unthinkable for shilling a women's beauty product.

As for the 'real' Dove ad....

The whole Dove 'concept' is based around the idea of a 'Campaign for Real Beauty'. It's trying to shatter the idea that beauty is all about flawless, over-retouched pre-pubescent anorexics. And that bigger, older and more characterful people can be just as beautiful. In Europe, one series for a body firming lotion featured large, healthy happy women, another featured women with piercings, scars and freckles. It's a very strong campaign, and has been very successful. You might almost call it 'out of the box', conceptually.

It's also European, and the American 'version' has been made a little more safe (Don't scare the mid-westerners with the pierced lady! They will turn on you and hit you with bibles!). The body wash ad is trying to represent 'real' people, and stay within the campaign's big concept. Whether it works? Well....

One thing is for sure, though, the Miss Piggy thing is totally weird. I don't see how she relates to 'real people' at all...Unless there's a big Muppet market crying out for representation. (or, come to think of it a big Geisha or Showgirl demographic hitherto untapped). Odd.

Loved the deeply uncomfortable 'scene' of Carolyn and The Hair presenting the ad. Carolyn's clearly not so good with an auto-cue. eh? Made Heidi Klum's Project Runway schtick look animated.

Finally, Deutsch don't even handle the Dove campaign. The work comes from an agency called Ogilvy & Mather. But I suppose that no-one there has his own chat show on CNBC, so we're stuck Donnie and his amazing cigar sized nipples. I don't even want to think what he does in his spare time to make them so engorged. Ew.

Pure sadistic pleasure this week. More!

A question for those who work in the advertising industry: Do you wear costumes when pitching to a customer?

The comparison of the vegi-porn and jet-porn reminds me of the old saw about not being able to define porn, but knowing it when it's seen. I didn't think the jet campaign was porn because of its "artiness." The Dove campaign was not well done, and I thought it was "pornish."

Right on to your entire post, Braxton Hicks. The Magna commercial was poorly executed, but it was hardly an original concept, as I recall seeing something like it online before. I wanted to smack that woman with Donnie Deutsch who said she would not use the product or allow her husband to use it after viewing Magna's commercial. I also wasn't buying that closet queen Bren (a strong hunch) was all that morally opposed to the concept or else, why propose it? Like others, I'm still confused as to why the professionally produced commercial for body wash focused so much on the faces of the models. The Net Worth team was pointedly criticized for this aspect of their commercial when the real problem was that the whole thing was poorly thought out and executed. As for the professional commercial, I, too, was perplexed by the inclusion of Miss Piggy in the ad. Were they actually recommending body wash on felt?

I agree. The photos for the jet print campaign were very well done--technically excellent and interesting compositions. Without the captions, they would be nice to hang on your office wall. The captions, however, were over the top (although imagine if Marquis jet advertised in Playboy or some other racy men's magazine).

What I found most objectionable about the Magna ad was Bitchy Actress Chef giving the cucumber a hand job. That image is seared into my retinas. It's squicky as hell and wouldn't be out of place in a low budget porno movie.

I do agree that some of the discussion by the apprentices smacked of homophobia, but I doubt that Deutsch is a homophobe. In fact, Deutsch (the agency) was the creator of the groundbreaking IKEA ad in 1994 that showed a gay male couple shopping for a dining room table.

The gay thing here was not clever, well-executed, or, frankly, coherent. And it didn't relate to the product at all, except for the poor objectified cucumber (which is in counseling now, I hear).

No 4Sibes. No. No No.

No-one wears costumes to a pitch, as far as I know. That would be far too cheesey.

However. Many of us dress like Danny. Out of choice.

I know - it's shameful, but it's true.

But do you play the guitar at work?

That may be true, but it doesn't mean that Donnie himself isn't homophobic. After all it was Mr 'Moral Values' Bren who suggested the whole idea - and I don't see him go-go dancing on a Pride float any time soon.



Constantly.

Most advertising agencies are just like Woodstock. But with more psychedlic drugs. And expense accounts.

Erin reminded me of a cat clock in the boardroom, you know the one where the eyes move from side to side and the tail wags.

Love Audrey, don't take shit from no one!

I hope Audrey goes all the way. If Trump picks another 'man' to work under him...he is gay.

Yes, he ran away from supporting homosexuality, but what he never denied that it was his idea, that he came up with the whole plotline from start to finish, and encouraged the rest to accept it. Considering the amazing amnesia that seems to hit some of these candidates once they find themselves in the boardroom ("What? I said to get a dumpster with no budget? I have no idea what you're talking about! Cameras? What cameras?") that was unusual.

I thought his sudden morality attack came out of right-field, so to speak, and was annoying, but it was - dare I use the word? - "refreshing" to see someone say "I came up with what went wrong and I won't deny that."



That was the only part of the ad that caught my attention and made me react - it was funny and unexpected.

This was, hands down, one of the best Apprentice episodes I've ever seen, simply because the candidates were so moronic. And it made up for the O.C. episode I watched right before it, which was one of the worst O.C. episodes I've ever seen, simply because the characters were so moronic.

I've also worked in advertising and I don't think my sexual orientation has a bearing here, so, whatever mine is is irrelevant. (Clearly, also obsessed with reality TV.) Anyway...

I didn't see homophobia as a central theme to the Deutsch/Trump/Carolyn/George dislike of the ads. They were just bad.

Primarily the product is about getting clean. Cucumber is added because it's commonly used as a refreshing item to soaps and other body products. As a consumer I want to see something that shows that I'll feel clean or refreshed if I use this product. Restaurant dishwashing rooms? Yuk. A guy smearing the goop on his face and wiping the gunk off with a towel? Equally ook. Neither of these ads hit any of the main points about the product: It gets you clean. You use it on your body. You wash with it. Cucumber is added as a refreshing element. I think that was the primary objection and it's a big objection.

That Magna decided to equate the cucumber with a phallic symbol may reflect more on Bren's psyche or narrow view of marketing, but hey he's a southern Republican lawyer, which is a long way from a New York liberal creative, so expectations were low. But the ad bombed on so many other levels that they were then left with nothing other than an adolescent cucumber joke.

And the entire "joke" in the Net Worth ad completely escaped me. Perhaps if I'd seen version John kept referring to, but whatever. Some guy dumping the goop on his face was just a product killer.

Finally, when I worked in advertising, which was only a few years back, agency folks didn't show up at a client presentation dressed in gimmicy costumes like chef's uniforms or matching cucumber-colored clothing. You wear regular business attire.

These Apprentice candidates just didn't have a clue about marketing, advertising or even basic business presentations on this one.

I agree also. While I thought season one's Marquis jet photos were wrong, they at least looked like decent photos. All that they had to do was change the quotes. Magna's ad looked like low budget porn. And jerking off the cucumber is something I could live without. I really doubt any editing could have saved that trainwreck.

I've noticed there's been some talk about Bren and Erin recently. I forgot that the moral values thing about Bren and after seeing it again, I did lose some love for him. But I still think he took responsibility. He didn't take the Kevin approach ("I might have suggested it sir, but it's the P.M.s fault for listening to me") of pointing the finger at someone else, so I have to give him that.

As for Erin: I do think she did a better job then Kristen as P.M., but she still is miles behind Angie and John. Also I do think that whole washing the model'a abs was wrong with the way she was looking at him. It you swaped the sexes with a male Apprenti washing a female model like that, there would a sexual harrassment lawsuit. I don't think it was cool that Erin got a way with that. Good thing the model didn't seem to care.

Well I loved this episode. I have to give credit to the show and say I thought that DD would suck it up and pick one of the train wrecks as being slighty less catastrophic than the other, so I was pleasantly surprised when he said they both sucked. That was a change-up I didn't see coming.

What can I say about the commercials that hasn't already been said? The NW commercial was just so damn funny, it reminded me of Linda Richman: "Body wash is neither applied to the body or used to wash. Discuss". My jaw literally dropped when the guy rubbed it on his face and then wiped it off...this goes back to the motel task for me, where one of the teams left the heavy plastic on the mattresses, thus making them 'crunchy': Do these people divest themselves of all common sense when they come on the show? Who doesn't know you take plastic off new bedding before guests sleep on it? And who doesn't know body wash is applied to the BODY and then WASHed off? Even if you live in a cave and hadn't heard of body wash, is there maybe a clue in the name...? Maybe just a hint of the complex workings of the "body" "wash"? And that's not even delving into the issue of body wash being marketed to women, not men.

The cucumber was mind-numbingly bad in about 40 different ways but nothing could top (bottom) the applying of the body wash to the face and the wiping off without water.

Word word word to everyone on the commercial actress. "No one was here to recieve me", oh my god.

I was just highly highly entertained by the entire episode. I kinda love Audrey even though she hasn't got a hope in hell. I don't like Erin but she knows how to play Trump and had good boardroom strategy so I have to give her that, as much as it hurts. And I agree that he ab washing was totally out of control, if Raj the Horndog had soaped up a half-naked female model last season, he would have been crucified.

[QUOTE]I think Alfred Hitchcock's dictum applies here. When asked about working conditions on his set, he replies that he "never said that actors are cattle. [He] said they should be treated like cattle." Suck it up, dear. Sometimes you have to be patient.[QUOTE]


It's one thing to be kept waiting by one of the most powerful directors in filmmaking, quite another to be held up for an hour and a half by a group of reality show contestants. I'm sure she milked it a little bit for the cameras, but I don't blame her for being upset. I would have liked to see her reaction when she saw the script.

Oh, totally agree with you here. They were so bad they were funny, but completely unusable in an ad campaign.

I still can't believe that when Bren was sitting there pitching his cucumber porn idea, and everyone was wetting their pants laughing, no one wiped the tears from his/her eyes, and said, "Hoo boy, that was funny, but no, seriously, come on, who else has an idea?" All that (alleged) brain power in that room, and that's what they finally settle on?

Please tell me that if either one of those lameass ads won, that Dove was only going to use the concept, not the actual film. Both of those ads looked like they were done by a middle school media class.
Why does every one hold teir cell phones like a microphone? it looks weird to me.

Who is Craig? By the way, anyone notice that there was some black guy in the boardroom this week? You had to look close to see him. ::sarcasm::

Holy cow, I never noticed that but you're exactly right. Especially when her eyes get really wide....now all I can see is Erin's face with the pupils going left, right, left, right, left, right.....

They're not cellphones, they're "space communicators." They only connect one to the other, so the Apprenti can't call their director boyfriends, etc., to bail them out of messes. They hold them away from their ears because they must permanently be set on "speaker" so that the other team members (and the camera/sound crew) can hear what's being said.

Someone else asked a similar question upthread about the way they (the contestants) hold their cell phones. They are using the "2-way radio" function on the phone and not making an actual phone call. The phone has a sort of loud speaker/microphone function when this is being used and it would be impractical to hold it up to your ear.

Also I read that they aren't allowed to used the cell phone function on the phones but I seem to remember someone (Andy?) making a call...can anyone confirm or deny this?

True, but I do think that Nipples (to avoid confusion with the agency, and not to ridicule him in any way) would not hesitate to use or approve of a gay-themed ad that was well-executed and for an appropriate product. The argument I was trying to make, in other words, was that Nipples and the Nipple-ettes saying the ad was bad due to, among other things, the gay theme and the cucumber sex, cannot automatically be written off as homophobic.