Everything I know about Marketing, I learned on The Apprentice...NOT!

When I was in college, I took a business law class where the Professor, Dr. Halamka (the name still gives me shivers), asked us to watch LA Law (yeah, just try and guess how old I am now) and pick out legal errors on the show (and I was in LA, so it somehow seemed appropriate). Now, I am much more prepared to pick out personality defects and fashion felonies, and honestly, Thursday nights at the sorority house were rarely spent watching TV. But I had to think back to these classroom discussions when I was watching The Apprentice. And the conversation over on Gretchen and Zoe's blog (answers to “what is your biggest weakness” and the smack Bill was talking on the show last week), made me think that this could be a blog topic.

First, let me say that you are among friends here, so it is really OK to admit that you watch The Apprentice. Second, let's get all the giggles over the Donald's hair-do (I can't call it a hair style or a hair cut...just...can't...do it) out of the way (“but he has such nice brown hair, I don't understand why he paints in those whitish gray roots”). Let's talk about how these hand-selected “up and comers” have made some hideously stupid blunders.

I mean, it is obvious to me that there is on theme for each mission and that if you figure out the theme early on, you can win the mission. For example, the bottled water (Trump Ice was it? That name...what the?). Let's see, commodity product...so distribution could be a key or maybe you should try flirting to sell half cases. No time for major branding work, it's water for crying out loud so there's not much of an opportunity for feature differentiation. So clearly, distribution or flirting...distribution or flirting...which would the Donald favor?

The apartment renovations were about return on investment. I swear, I was shouting at my TV “come on people! Figure it out!”

The best part of the whole show was that 10 year old kid in Las Vegas telling Nick or Troy to stop selling when the customer has already said yes (I hate to admit but the kid phrased it better...can't remember what he said).

What bugged you most about The Apprentice? And why is it that TV that is so bad is so good?