yadayada: WTF? Why was Alla allowed to leave the BR tonight? Did I miss something cause I am sure Felisha pointed out quite clearly to Alla and Adam that she needed more labour and the fact that she can't get more is because of the budget being spent on carriages quite early on in the task.
Is it not the PM's decision then to decide where to spend cash? If Alla is all that great (…I am quite sure she is not) why did she not alter the budget?[/quote]
I agree. Alla got off very lightly. She approved the boneheaded strategy, the division of funds, and the subsequent decimation of the ESL labor force. She was the one really responsible for the loss.
I think the decision had already been made that Randal and Rebecca, by winning and by prior performances (remember Trump accused Clay of ruining them), were in the final four. Alla, based upon past performance (and, perhaps, the ratings titillation of having a stripper connected to a lesbian murder spree in the final four) was also in.
Once CE lost, the choice was which of the two lesser performers would be next week’s sacrificial lamb. It really didn’t matter. Either one is hosed come the interviews. Felisha rode Alla’s coattails to the final four, but in the interview she’s on her own and it won’t be pretty.
Adam has too little experience and is in serious need of some seasoning, so he wouldn’t have lasted past the first executive.
The fact that Excel won by five votes however does tell me that they didn’t sell as well or as hard as the other team, considering they had 45 more people than the other team.[/quote]
Perhaps not. How many of CE’s phone calls were made by Alla or from Alla’s phone at her insistence? If someone came up to me on the street and harangued me until I let them call a phone number, I might do it just to get the crazy lady to go away.
What if CE had won using the phone strategy? The bullhorn theft was a legitimate (albeit sneaky) move (fair since CE left them unsecured at Radio Shack). But stuffing a ballot box in your own favor is definitely going over the line.
LadyKenobi: Allatine['s]…obnoxious for skipping away from the blame, and Felisha and Adam are too stupid to know they were being divided and and conquered.[/quote]
That political skillset is why Alla[tine] is in the final four and one of the other two is not.
WinkyDink: Randall better watch out for Rebecca's shiv; it's gotta be there somewhere![/quote]
Word! She’s not the naïve lass she pretends to be. She should have been fired for the whole Toral fiasco, but she survived – and did it talking back to DT. Randal, however,
is a bit naïve and unaccustomed to the vicious infighting at which Rebecca and Alla seem to have a fair amount of skill.
WinkyDink: Why even have "wraps"? Just buttonhole people and tell them, "Here's my cell-phone! I already dialed! Tell them your name and get free perfume!"[/quote]
Why stop there? Why not wrap one sandwich board (since they had to wrap something), take it to Times Square, and pay people passing by $5 apiece to dial the number? Instead of employing homeless people to walk around promoting the number, they could have simply had them dial it. That strategy would have the added benefit of resulting in better-smelling homeless people – a benefit to us all.
Captain Tact II
Nov 28, 2005 @ 8:16 pm
As far as posting to a Shania Twain message board, I can nderstand not being allowed to advertise the number....but why not just post something along the lines of "Hey! Are you a Shania Twain fan? Live in or near NYC? Wanna help her get the word out about her new perfume (Smells like Horse Spirit?)? Well, come on out to [wherever they're going to meet] and help us spread the word that by calling 1-800-[whatever] people can get a free sample! We'll be out harrassing people when the lines are open- from 10 AM to 4 PM. Come early for bottled water, doughnuts and instructions!"
It edges the line, but could be called recruiting rather than advertising...you're just giving VERY detailed instructions.
retrose1
Nov 29, 2005 @ 1:48 am
But R&R had four times as many people (people with megaphones and/or speaking Spanish in a Spanish-speaking neighborhood) and they still only got FIVE MORE VOTES.[/quote]
I think that deployment was the cause of the narrow margin. The teams should have sent at least half of their force to Wal-marts and the other half to the trailer parks (if there is such a thing in NYC). But I'll bet that Wal-mart didn't pay for advertising and Radio Shack did.
The point was to have the "wrapped" used in such a way that IT influences people to call. The way the task was performed by both teams, it wasn't the "wrap" that was getting people to call, but the salespeople.[/quote]
I can't think of wrapping anything that would make me do anything. I see it as wasteful and useless and just another name for a billboard. Maybe wrapped around a $20 bill would influence me.
As far as the final four goes, I care about these guys about as much as I care about Shania's new stench. Felisha I don't care about, Alla's appearance is hard, cold, nasty and looks like she kicks puppies for pleasure, Rebecca looks like Sandra Bullock and Randal reminds me of Kwame. I have no vested interest in any of these guys, I'm only in this for Trumpy love.
SomeTameGazelle
Nov 29, 2005 @ 8:28 am
The task dossier (included in the weekly summary on the Yahoo! site) stated that "each team will design advertising materials to be turned into 'wrap'"[/quote]
What??? The teams designed the wraps? I thought they looked identical, except for the number. Maybe all the "design" effort went into figuring out the right dimensions for "people" v. "carriages".
LadyBast
Nov 29, 2005 @ 10:02 am
The teams should have sent at least half of their force to Wal-marts and the other half to the trailer parks (if there is such a thing in NYC).[/quote]
NYC doesn't have a Wal-mart (not yet anyway...one was supposed to be built in Queens this year but the plug was pulled) or trailer parks.
CheekyCricket
Nov 29, 2005 @ 12:53 pm
What??? The teams designed the wraps? I thought they looked identical, except for the number. Maybe all the "design" effort went into figuring out the right dimensions for "people" v. "carriages". [/quote]
Both teams seemed to use the standard promotional photograph for Shania! (the one I've been seeing in the stores) though there may have been some cropping. Looking at some of the still photos on the NBC site, I did notice that the phone number and the text, especially the word FREE, was much more prominent on Capital Edge's sandwich boards than on Excel's: large and right on top of the signs. See
here, if you're interested. This may help to account for the close margin of calls, despite the fact that Excel had four times as many street staff as Capital Edge. If the phone number and "Free Samples" wasn't as prominent on the Excel signage, then it would be less likely to generate random phone calls. Bet that would have come up in the boardroom if the 5-call margin had gone the other way.
highlander
Nov 29, 2005 @ 1:13 pm
If anyone can enlarge these photos please help me out. My computer is not allowing me to do so no matter what I do and I really have trouble seeing the photos without them being enlarged. With heartfelt thanks.
mechitar
Nov 29, 2005 @ 6:38 pm
I wasn't actually able to see the episode, so I'm only going by the recap with this comment, so maybe take this with a grain of salt...
That thing about Adam spending $6000 to wrap carriages sounds foolish, but consider:
Randal and Rebecca sunk all their money into four times as many people on the streets, and people with bullhorns at that. And yet, with all that supposed advantage, they only won by a handful of calls. In essence, 45 extra people yielded only 8 extra phone calls. If that's so, people with sandwich boards = worthless, and wrapped carriages = gold, and Adam was the only smart one of the bunch. I know that's a simplification, and a bit of a distortion of logic, but that's how it seems to work out.
CheekyCricket
Nov 29, 2005 @ 6:58 pm
In essence, 45 extra people yielded only 8 extra phone calls.[/quote]
Yeah, when you crunch the numbers, it's hard not to acknowledge that Excel's sandwich-board carriers were nowhere as efficient as Capital Edge's, even though Excel won. I believe Excel deserves credit for the win, but not too much credit. The whole task was kind of a money-waster, since each call ended up costing the teams almost ten dollars. It probably would have been more efficient to mail the perfume samples to a targeted list of consumers. But efficiency is not the point, I guess. Winning is the point, and in the World of Trump, winners take all.
gapkid
Nov 29, 2005 @ 10:00 pm
I think Alla personally secured at least 100-150 calls all on her own so R&R's 45 extra people did not only manage to get 5 calls more, but probably around 200 more. Still doesn't sound very effective, tho.
odietamo
Nov 30, 2005 @ 2:01 am
I am now wondering who counted the calls and how. Remeber Florida in 2000?
Flootoona
Nov 30, 2005 @ 6:57 am
Perhaps not. How many of CE’s phone calls were made by Alla or from Alla’s phone at her insistence? If someone came up to me on the street and harangued me until I let them call a phone number, I might do it just to get the crazy lady to go away.[/quote]
If Alla or any other used-up stripper/corporate weasel had come up to me on the street and confronted me like that, she'd have gotten an irate harangue right back in her face, camera crew be damned. I watched the rerun last night, and the way she was screeching at people, "You HAVE to stop RIGHT NOW and CALL THIS NUMBER! We WON'T take no for an answer!" was flat out offensive. That's exactly the kind of marketing approach that makes my blood boil and would virtually ensure that I would never consider making the phone call OR buying the product in question. (As if I would ever be likely to purchase Shaniastank anyway. Ew.) I don't see any element of this promotion - the street whoring, the thousands of yards of poorly designed vinyl advo-wrap, the runaway carriage, the association with Greaseball McHair Von Trumpenberger - yeilding anything in the way of consumer good will. Then again, I've seen video snippets of the throngs of Trumpette Groupies of Questionable Taste who seem to hang outside of all known Hair locations, and they look like exactly the kind of freaks who might drench themselves in some cheap horsey scent because they saw it on TV, so what do I know?
benrod1
Nov 30, 2005 @ 9:32 am
A few things from last nights repeat of the episode:
- Alla and CE knew all along that they were buying up the entire stock of megaphones. Possibly thinking that they can get them all and deny them to Excel. So Excel snatching them up first, since CE didnt secure them at all, was a legitimate countermove.
- Alla originally budgeted for 20 then cut Felisha's budget to 15. then after the loss she complained to Adam that she really wanted 25 but all Felisha could negotiate was the 15, who apparently werent qualified enough to sell anything. Well, who's fault was it if the number kept shifting and the money kept getting cut?
- From the editing on the show it looks like CE were the ones who actually were doing most of the accosting of people and getting them to call. Their people mostly just stood around with the park, and if they only stayed at Union Square or Washington Square then you wouldnt get much foot traffic anyway. Excel just stayed in the background and concentrated on proper deployment of troops and resources, including sending people to spanish speaking areas of the city. In effect they actually managed their people better, while CE was just trying to generate calls by any means. CE may have lost by only 5 calls, but the three had to do more of the work to get those calls than their own troops did.
cougarfan45
Nov 30, 2005 @ 12:27 pm
I've been watching Shania Twain videos since she first came on the scene and have seen her on live TV several times. She is (argueably) one of the most attractive women who have ever been in the entertainment world. She is truely beautiful and has a knock-out body. There is some underlying reason why she left her cowgirl hat on at dinner...maybe she is ill. When she takes her hat off and shakes that long hair, there are few women who can compare as far as sex appeal. It wasn't a matter of too little time, I'm sure they had plenty of time between the horseback ride and the dinner. Also, I thought that she had way too much makeup on, she looked unhealthy or something. Despite what some people on the thread have implied, she is a very talented performer who packs them in to the roof at every performance.
Having said all of that, I thought this episode sucked totally except for BullHornGate, which was a very smart way to play the game.
Toonces67
Nov 30, 2005 @ 3:30 pm
The Felisha/Adam showdown was like watching two fluffy puppies maul each other to death. Weird and uncomfortable. I kept thinking oh no, make it stop, puppies shouldn't fight.
rollergiraffe
Nov 30, 2005 @ 5:26 pm
But efficiency is not the point, I guess. Winning is the point, and in the World of Trump, winners take all. [/quote]
In terms of dollar efficiency though, both teams spent the same amount of money.
CheekyCricket
Nov 30, 2005 @ 7:40 pm
Almost a week later, and my lingering question about the episode remains . . . Well, actually, I have several lingering questions, but the one that is sticking with me is this: what does "being a gladiator," in the sense of being willing to confront others (which is how Trump presented it), have to do with the course of events, or with why Excel won? Adam and Felisha confronted each other in the boardroom, and Adam was still fired. Randal and Rebecca were so nervous about running into Capital Edge at Radio Shack that Randal played lookout and Rebecca tried to get out of the store as fast as possible. Indeed, they took steps to avoid confrontation, and yet they won.
Now if Trump's lesson was that there's merit in tricking your opponent in order to gain an advantage, that would have made some sense. But what Randal and Rebecca did was not "gladiatorial confrontation" in any sense of the term that I understand.
I know, I know, it's a purely rhetorical question . . . why, why, would I expect Trump's lessons to make sense.
blocked writer
Nov 30, 2005 @ 10:23 pm
Well, almost a week later, and pretty much everything has been said about this episode. I've read with interest how divided people are on the megaphone controversy. I think good points were made on both sides. I still feel somewhat divided on the issue. I understand why Randal and Rebecca did what they did, and as has been mentioned, I do think Trump would have held it against them if he found out that they hadn't snagged the megaphones when they got the chance.
However, I hate the fact that they felt that they needed to do it. I was disappointed in Randal, but at the same time I do think that he was up against the wall. From the last task, when Trump criticized his error on the poster(excessively, I think), to the beginning of this task, when Trump continued to kick him when he was down. I hated the fact that Trump said to Randal, in front of all the other contestants, how much his stock had plummeted (or words to that effect). He had already covered that in the boardroom, so it was just gratuitous to keep hitting that same point, IMO.
I did love how Randal just stared back at Trump with a steely gaze. IIRC, Trump actually asked Randal if he agreed that his stock had plummeted. Did he really think Randal was going for the old okie-doke, and say, "Yes, Mr. Trump, I agree. I was an abject failure on the last task, and I am a disgrace."
I'll always love Randal for the look he gave him. I like to imagine that he was thinking, "I'll show you, you monkey-haired bastard." I really think this spurred Randal to pull out all the stops, and do something he otherwise might not have done. I'd rather have seen him win in a different manner, but as has been mentioned, Alla's cell phone antics weren't completely aboveboard, so neither team played it in a totally unquestionable manner.
But this continues to fuel my discontent with the tasks and the show. The tasks generally do not encourage greatness. The limited timeframes and other restrictions keep us from seeing the best the candidates can do. I think that had both teams been given a few days to come up with a plan to generate the most phone calls, (or even some other criterion for judging), and if they omited the wrapping requirement, the task would have been much more interesting.
Flootoona
Dec 1, 2005 @ 7:33 am
"I'll show you, you monkey-haired bastard." [/quote]
I totally want that on a t-shirt. Now.
blocked writer
Dec 1, 2005 @ 9:45 am
I totally want that on a t-shirt. Now.[/quote]
And I bet if you were wearing such a t-shirt Flootoona, most people would immediately know it was referring to Donald Trump. ;-)
Rey Kjavik
Dec 1, 2005 @ 5:41 pm
- Alla and CE knew all along that they were buying up the entire stock of megaphones. Possibly thinking that they can get them all and deny them to Excel. So Excel snatching them up first, since CE didnt secure them at all, was a legitimate countermove.[/quote]
I keep seeing this point being made, which makes me wonder if I'd missed part of the episode. Was there footage showing that Alla & CE were trying not just to buy megaphones for themselves but to go out of their way to deny them to the other team? Or are we just assuming this?
I mean, if they're buying 20 megaphones and only have 15 people (plus themselves) to give them to, then, yeah, we can see what they're up to without having to be told. But since there only seemed to be 10 megaphones to be had, I'm not sure what's the problem with trying to buy them all. Was CE expected to say "Well, we could use all ten, but give us only five, because our competitors will need them, too."
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