The 2010 edition of The Apprentice, NBC’s business reality show starring and executive produced by real estate mogul Donald Trump, features entrepreneurs and professionals competing for a $250,000 job contract with the Trump organization. Each week the contestants must complete a business task. The winners are rewarded; the losers must report to the infamous boardroom, where at least one candidate will be fired by Trump. Of the three African Americans featured on this edition of The Apprentice, only Liza Mucheru-Wisner remains. With each task of The Apprentice 2010, I will post performance reviews of the candidates, their teams and their project managers.
Read and comment on other performance reviews of The Apprentice 2010 Tasks.
Leadership Lesson: Great leaders listen closely and intently to the members of their team, and they pay even closer attention to when their team members disagree with a chosen course of action or see a flaw in its execution. To ignore dissenters in favor of only those who agree with you and tell you what you want to hear is to court disaster.
TASK 8: Produce 4-page advertising layouts for Donald J. Trump Signature Collection of dress shirts, ties and cuff links for department store retailer Macy’s. Layouts will be judged on creativity, brand integration and overall presentation.
As anticipated, Trump abandons the men vs. women theme this week, reassigning Clint Roberston and Steuart Martens to Fortitude and Stephanie Castagnier and Poppy Carlig to Octane. Brandy Kuentzel, the only candidate yet to lead on a task, is project manager for the revamped Fortitude. David Johnson becomes the first candidate to get a second shot as project manager; he was Octane’s losing PM on Task 2.
Eager to build on the momentum he gained during his strong performance on Octane’s winning effort on the backers audition (see Task 7 review), David attacks this task with confidence and enthusiasm. Octane quickly decides to go with a black and white theme for their ads, with only the shirts, ties and cuff links from the Donald J. Trump Collection in color. Stroking David’s fragile ego with plenty of positive reassurance, Stephanie quickly establishes herself as an ally in David’s eyes. Not so much for Anand and Poppy. When the time comes for Octane to select models, David immediately fixates on a tall, slender male model. Despite having earlier assigned Anand and Poppy to work with the models, he insists on this particular model being the “face” of the campaign, citing his “regal, youthful” look. Anand and Poppy have their doubts, but when Poppy points out that the clothes don’t fit properly on David’s lead model (his neck is clearly too small for the shirt collar), David dismisses her concerns. Similarly, when Anand, who worked with the photographers on the shoots, tries to help David with photo selection, David sends him away while muttering a stream of obscenities (telling Stephanie that he “hates that m—f—“). David further alienates Poppy by taking her to task for failing to get food for the models. But when Poppy suggests that the last page of their ad layout should feature product photos sans models, David approves the idea, willing to surrender the one page in return for near-absolute creative control over the other three.
When Clint suggests that their campaign should focus on money, power and sex as the key elements of the Trump brand, Brandy and the rest of Fortitude embrace the idea. This includes Liza, who suggests that Fortitude’s ad layout tell the story of a day in the exciting life of a man, at work and at play, who wears the Donald J. Trump Collection. However, Liza is uncomfortable with a campaign that is too overtly sexual, fearing it could hurt the Trump brand. Brandy, on the other hand, is excited about the sexy aspect of the idea, and moves forward without hesitation. After tasking Clint and Liza with shopping for clothes for the models, Brandy faces a setback–Fortitude’s models are late, with an unknown ETA. Facing a tight deadline, Brandy decides that she and Steuart will serve as the models for the first shoot, a sexually charged, “morning after” bedroom scene. Liza’s concerns about the edginess of the ads is heightened when the sex theme spills beyond the bedroom, to a Happy Hour image of Brandy with Steuart’s hand on her bare thigh, showcasing Trump Collection cuff links.
On the day of their respective presentations, the judges express concerns about whether Fortitude’s ads were too “racy” for Macy’s family-oriented brand appeal. As for the Octane’s ads, the judges note with displeasure the ill fit of the clothes on David’s lead model, as well as the fact that the photos on the last page are too small to see the design detail of the products.
The Result: In the end, the judges liked both campaigns, but chose Fortitude’s ad layouts as the clear winner, citing superior integration of products with the Trump brand, including Trump Vodka, as just one of winning attributes.
Who I Would Have Fired: David had to go. Nearly all of the shortcomings of Octane’s ad layout where either ignored by David after being pointed out by Anand and/or Poppy (i.e., clothes not fitting the models) or explicitly approved by David (Poppy’s layout on the last page with images too small to see the detail of the products). In his own words, he “handled 90% of the project.” In fact, the only person David listened to was the one person who implicitly seemed to support everything he did: Stephanie. Plus, David is the first candidate to serve as PM on two tasks, and he lost them both.
Interim Evaluations of the Black Candidates: Liza played
the good soldier on this task, although she clearly disagreed with the emphasis on sex in Fortitude’s concept, feeling that it might be too racy and inappropriate for the Trump brand, a concern that was shared by at least one of the judges. It’s not clear whether Liza raised her concerns during the task, but she was smart not to raise them in the boardroom, helping to counter the perception that she is the complaining non-contributor Stephanie and several of the other women have accused her of being during most of this competition. As I’ve been saying, ending the men vs. women team structure improves the odds for Liza. The fact that Stephanie, the only remaining candidate who has been openly hostile toward her, is now a member of Octane also helps.Dead Men Walking: With David gone, only Brandy and Stueart remain on my list of candidates who have little chance of becoming Trump’s next apprentice. However, because of Brandy’s win as PM on this task, I am commuting her sentence. In her place, I’m adding Anand, because of my answer to this question:
Who Will Be Fired For Cheating Before the Next Task?: Anand Vasudev
So now we know that at least two candidates will be fired by the end of the next task. At the end of last night’s airing of Task 8, the previews for the next episode revealed that all of the candidates would be called back to the board room before Task 9, where someone will be fired by Trump for cheating. Here’s what we know, based on the previews: A candidate text-messaged a friend to meet at Trump Towers with at least $50 during one of the tasks. The friend was instructed to pretend to be a stranger to the candidate, who identifies himself or herself as a project manager and indicates that the money could help win the task.
Now, based on last night’s previews, Trump clearly looks and points to his left when he directs the fateful phrase “You’re fired” at the guilty party, which would indicate that Clint, or possibly Liza, will get the axe; both are sitting across from Trump to his left in the board room. But I’m guessing that the shot of Trump delivering his signature line is one of many cutaways from which the shows producers chose. As clues go, where Trump is facing and pointing is a red herring. So as far as I’m concerned, Clint and Liza are off the hook.
There have been only two tasks thus far where the winning team was chosen based on the amount of cash generated: the ice cream push cart sales competition (see Task 2 review) and the New York pedicab tours competition (see Task 6 review). Of the four PMs on those tasks, David and Kelly Smith Beaty have already been fired, leaving Poppy and Anand. Could it have been Poppy? Yes; it would have been easy for a friend to sneak money to her while she was leading Fortitude during the ice cream sales task. But that task took place at Union Square, not near Trump Tower. Which leaves Anand, who as PM led Octane to a lop-sided victory on the pedicab tour task, raising more than $950 to Fortitude’s $320. On the second day of that task, Anand sent the rest of his team ahead to begin giving the pedicab tours, while he initially stayed behind–at Trump Towers–to concentrate on sales. Alone, with not even his teammates as witnesses, it’s easy for me to believe that Anand sent a text to a friend to get some cash to add to their pedicab tour receipts as extra insurance of a victory for him as project manager.
I hate to say this, because I really believe Anand is on track to become Trump’s next apprentice. I could be wrong. But I believe Anand is the cheater.
Who Will Be The Next Apprentice?: Assuming I’m right about Anand, my new “Final 4” is Brandy, Clint, Stephanie and Liza, with none of the four enjoying a distinct advantage.
Who do you think the cheater is? Who do you choose for your Final 4? And who will be the next apprentice? Leave a comment and let’s talk about it!