CarylB
11 Apr 2011, 16:43
My view? The koala won it. Busey touting for employment with Australian Gold lost it.
In every task there's a moment when your instinct tells you a critical decision has been made, and leaving the koala costume in the shop was one of them imo. Had Backbone included it in their interactive process, which was far, far superior to ASAPs. who knows how far it might have swung the executives' decision back towards a concept, which while it was risky, was so much more creative than the safe, predominantly beach theme opted for by ASAP. The criteria for judging were clear; creativity, interaction and brand image. Backbone were ahead on the classic two out of three.
To lose on one criteria seems flawed, and Trump Junior hit the nail on the head when he put forward the insightful hypothesis that the executives could have been largely turned off the theme by Busey's aggressive and inappropriate comandeering of them when they visited. Sadly, Mark (who's a decent and straight player) did not use this life-line strongly enough and argue that as this is what may have made their theme rejected rather han the concept itself, and given they were ahead on both other criteria, hell no, he could not be held responsible and should not be fired. He was a good PM, organised and managed the process well, had the clear support of his team, and should not have gone imo.
LaToya didn't overly impress me as PM :| Credit to her for identifying the obvious all-weather need for sunscreen, but her vetoing using their Playmate of the Year as a central model was a poor decision and one can only speculate and wonder as to her reasons; the one she gave imo didn't hold water at all. Her organising skills weren't good, and I'm still at a loss to understand why she had her team speackling and painting, whilst Backbone just had the builders build whilst they concentrated on what was more properly needed to be done by the team.
Busey's inappropriate comment during the briefing was poor, but nowhere near as bad as his behaviour during the executives' visit on the day, when the big cheese had a smile nailed on his face that never reached his eyes, and seemed to get even more fixed when he tried to get away from Busey who wouldn't let them escape. "Let's walk round and see some more .." "NO!!" At that point of course Busey hadn't made his pitch to be the advertising face of Australian Gold at "a good price" :roll: His repeated and bare-faced denial that any of this had happened, when the evidence was clear (and confirmed by the Trump offspring) would have had Alan Sugar dismissing his protestations with "Gary .. I don't like being lied to. You're fired!" .. but this is Trump territory, and I have the impression he wants to milk the Busey potential for chaos and disharmony as long as he can, and far longer than is conscionable. How far Busey's disfunctional behaviour is due to the aftermath of his accident, how much has always been there, how much it may have been encouraged by working in an industry where stars focusing purely on themselves to the exclusion of others may often be tolerated, I have no idea. Has he such a level of total self-absorption that he genuinely forgets his clangers and disruptive behaviour, are his memory banks faulted beyond repair, or is it intentional and played for the boardroom as JR has concluded? Again, I can't be sure from simply watching edited footage. Whatever underpins it is arguably irrelevant imo. It's simply, to me, unacceptable and it's time Trump accepted and acted on that.
I loved Meat's creativity, commitment (who will forget that image of him trucking sacks across the pier? :lol:), his theatre on the day, and his clear and objective presentation of the facts to Trump about the issues with Busey during the task. Like the others, perhaps even more, he will I'm sure miss Mark's solid contribution to future tasks and his enduring good humour. Very sorry to see him go, and to me it was undeserved as we'll never know how far Busey's actions sabotaged Backbone's theme, and in my view he made the least useful but most disruptive contribution :(
Mark, you'll be missed :(
Caryl
In every task there's a moment when your instinct tells you a critical decision has been made, and leaving the koala costume in the shop was one of them imo. Had Backbone included it in their interactive process, which was far, far superior to ASAPs. who knows how far it might have swung the executives' decision back towards a concept, which while it was risky, was so much more creative than the safe, predominantly beach theme opted for by ASAP. The criteria for judging were clear; creativity, interaction and brand image. Backbone were ahead on the classic two out of three.
To lose on one criteria seems flawed, and Trump Junior hit the nail on the head when he put forward the insightful hypothesis that the executives could have been largely turned off the theme by Busey's aggressive and inappropriate comandeering of them when they visited. Sadly, Mark (who's a decent and straight player) did not use this life-line strongly enough and argue that as this is what may have made their theme rejected rather han the concept itself, and given they were ahead on both other criteria, hell no, he could not be held responsible and should not be fired. He was a good PM, organised and managed the process well, had the clear support of his team, and should not have gone imo.
LaToya didn't overly impress me as PM :| Credit to her for identifying the obvious all-weather need for sunscreen, but her vetoing using their Playmate of the Year as a central model was a poor decision and one can only speculate and wonder as to her reasons; the one she gave imo didn't hold water at all. Her organising skills weren't good, and I'm still at a loss to understand why she had her team speackling and painting, whilst Backbone just had the builders build whilst they concentrated on what was more properly needed to be done by the team.
Busey's inappropriate comment during the briefing was poor, but nowhere near as bad as his behaviour during the executives' visit on the day, when the big cheese had a smile nailed on his face that never reached his eyes, and seemed to get even more fixed when he tried to get away from Busey who wouldn't let them escape. "Let's walk round and see some more .." "NO!!" At that point of course Busey hadn't made his pitch to be the advertising face of Australian Gold at "a good price" :roll: His repeated and bare-faced denial that any of this had happened, when the evidence was clear (and confirmed by the Trump offspring) would have had Alan Sugar dismissing his protestations with "Gary .. I don't like being lied to. You're fired!" .. but this is Trump territory, and I have the impression he wants to milk the Busey potential for chaos and disharmony as long as he can, and far longer than is conscionable. How far Busey's disfunctional behaviour is due to the aftermath of his accident, how much has always been there, how much it may have been encouraged by working in an industry where stars focusing purely on themselves to the exclusion of others may often be tolerated, I have no idea. Has he such a level of total self-absorption that he genuinely forgets his clangers and disruptive behaviour, are his memory banks faulted beyond repair, or is it intentional and played for the boardroom as JR has concluded? Again, I can't be sure from simply watching edited footage. Whatever underpins it is arguably irrelevant imo. It's simply, to me, unacceptable and it's time Trump accepted and acted on that.
I loved Meat's creativity, commitment (who will forget that image of him trucking sacks across the pier? :lol:), his theatre on the day, and his clear and objective presentation of the facts to Trump about the issues with Busey during the task. Like the others, perhaps even more, he will I'm sure miss Mark's solid contribution to future tasks and his enduring good humour. Very sorry to see him go, and to me it was undeserved as we'll never know how far Busey's actions sabotaged Backbone's theme, and in my view he made the least useful but most disruptive contribution :(
Mark, you'll be missed :(
Caryl