Week 4
Task : Create a video advertising popcorn from Popcorn Indiana
Judged on: The potential of the video to go viral
 | Competition is heating up on the Apprentice. Week 4’s task is to create a guerrilla marketing stunt. A video promoting popcorn from Popcorn Indiana. The winning team would be the one that creates a video with the potential to go viral. |
As Week 4 starts, I am still yet to see any strategies in both teams. It seems the only one with a strategy in Octane is David; His strategy is ”make the PM’s task as difficult as possible, so the PM can be fired”.
In the previous task, David survives the boardroom yet again. He lets Steuart know that he is not happy that Steuart called him out with regards to his insubordination of James.
According to Steuart, David brings negative energy to the team. I would have liked to see Wade as PM, especially since he had promised Mr. Trump that he could manage David and put David’s “passion” to good use. Clint is the new PM having stepped up when Wade was still in the boardroom. Hopefully, he can handle David. GOOD LUCK!
The men seem to have a better idea of what the video should look like. A popcorn fight on 5th avenue, outside Trump Tower CAN attract a huge crowd. According to Wade, since popcorn is a product that is used by the whole family, the concept might be too violent especially for kids. But kids have pillow fights all the time, that’s how I looked at it. I think the popcorn fight would bring an element of fun.
Octane gets a blessing in disguise since David has to be away from the task because of a broken tooth. They can work without distraction. They manage to stage a HUGE popcorn fight and their video has a good chance of going viral. I mean, they only shut down 5th avenue right in front of Trump Tower.
Mahsa steps up as PM for Fortitude. It will be interesting to see how Mahsa performs as PM since she has been extremely vocal and critical of the PM’s in previous tasks.
Tyana has a good understanding of what a viral video is. A stunt that is hilarious and filled with humour that a viewer would feel compelled to forward it to all their friends.
Unfortunately, she is not coming up with any substantive ideas or alternatives that the team can implement.
Mahsa tries to delegate the duties, however, it looks like she wants to direct the video shoot all by herself. This could be risky, because if it fails, then she would have no one to blame. But she would probably pin it on someone else by saying that they did not help.Fortitude’s video is a good commercial but I do not see it going viral. Tyana probably made the worst decision when she decided to distance herself from the final phase of the project. It shows that she is not a good team player.
Enter the boardroom...
I think its pretty clear who the winner is. Tyana says that she does not think they won. She has not even seen the men’s video. Mahsa goes for the jugular and says that she thinks Tyana has been the weakest link for each of the tasks they have had so far. Tyana openly admires and appreciates the men’s video and Mahsa cannot believe what she is hearing. She calls Tyana evil.
I like the look on the men’s face as they watch the ladies’ video. They are probably thinking “did the women not see the words stunt and guerrilla in the description of the task?”
Mahsa tries to say that they did not have enough time but Ivanka points out that both teams had the same amount of time. Mahsa quickly drops this point of defence because it would expose her as a poor time manager. Apparently, Liza and Tyana did not contribute in the creativity part but how could they when they were sent out to run errands. However she did not single out Poppy, even though she was out shopping too, and hence did not contribute to the creativity. Mahsa then claims that she did not have any help shooting the video and blames Liza. But she had help because Tyana had one of the videocams.
Mr. Don Jr. suggests that if the women’s video was a bit more extreme it would have had a good chance of going viral. Mahsa agrees vehemently yet she was the same one that kept telling one of the actors to tone it down.
Fortitude lost because they did not push the idea to the extreme. For this, Mahsa as the PM should have been fired.
However, Tyana had irked all the members of the team by checking out on the task. She was not a good team player and criticized the ideas that were put forth by the other team members without offering any alternatives. Tyana keeps insisting that they lost because of the concept even after Ivanka mentions that the executives liked the idea, it was just not pushed enough.
Tyana gets fired and Mahsa heaves a sigh of relief. Again, it’s not clear why Liza was brought back to the boardroom.
Hopefully, having been a PM, Mahsa will try to follow direction when the other team members are PMs.
Most important aspect of project management that is highlighted this week is being a team player.
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