Gina's RantSpot About The Apprentice

Gina's RantSpot About The Apprentice

Gina has a nice summary of the Feb 10th episode of The Apprentice. Read that first if you didn't see the show.

I honestly believe that the Street Smarts team ("Net Worth") had the winning Dove ad and simply lost on the execution. The initial concept was funny but the director, Kristen, totally lost it. John should have scripted the whole thing and stayed on the set. Bren's idea for Magna's commercial was so bad on so many levels, I don't even need to go into it.

I thought the funniest part of John's idea was simply replacing the water grab you see so often in races with the soap grab that he described. You don't even need to make it a race setting and you certainly didn't need to imply that soap makes you run faster. Let the soap do what it does best, just clean and smell nice.

The first thing I'd try to do is get Lance Armstrong to make the ad. If you couldn't get him, I'd get somebody that looks a lot like him and imply that it was him. This was just a demo spot to sell the concept to Donny Deutsch. You wouldn't get sued over it.

Depict Lance like he's in a real race. Show him riding at breakneck speeds. Show him grab a cup of water as he speeds by a pit stop. Splash it all over his face and chest. When the next pit comes up, he grabs Dove soap. Here's where it gets tricky. I'd have him just wash his face similar to what Net Worth did, though in hindsight it's clear the agency didn't like such "misuse" of the product. So OK, let him take off his shirt and lather up his chest as he's coasting on his bike. At least women would enjoy it, right?

Next pit stop, GRAB MORE WATER! Splash the water to wash off the soap. Now have him stop in an urban, downtown setting, squeaky clean. Produce a tuxedo from a bag on the back of the bike. He walks away from the bike and up to a woman waiting for him at (surprise) the theater.

You do the whole thing with a voice-over explaining how Lance is always in training and needs on-the-go convenience. He also needs to look his best whether he's winning the Tour de France or going out on the town.

I'm no advertising guru so my vision probably needs to be tweaked a lot, but I like the basic premise for several reasons. First, it's funny. Second, the product is the hero of the joke. The soap is what makes the outlandish situation possible. Nobody will forget that it was an ad for liquid soap. Furthermore it has all the sizzle elements you could ask for. You get a star with name recognition. You get sex appeal watching Lance wash up. You get drama, romance, and you get a surprise ending.

Honestly, the first thing I would have done in this task (again) is get help. You need some creative advertising people to give you input. Go to the nearest college with an advertising program. Talk to some professors and get students to work out concepts as a class project. Any one of them would kill for the opportunity to make a good impression on Donny Deutsch. Neither team used that to their advantage.

I also have to point out for all the grief Donny gave Net Worth about using the body soap to wash the actor's face, look at the ad that Deutsch produced! What does it show? Face transformations, not body transformations. How does Dove body soap make Miss Piggy's hair look better?!

I'll also point out that Donny's commercial tries to make the product the hero, it's funny, has some sex appeal, a star with name recognition, and a surprise ending. I still don't like it because the comedy isn't apparent until the surprise ending. 10 seconds into the ad he'd already lost my attention and the soap really isn't central to the joke.