So today is Mother’s Day and like most people I spent the day with my mom. Funny enough, one of the thing she wanted to see was that new Target store where since there wasn’t a local store at the moment so we had to drive a little to a mall that did have one. Every mom must have a similar way of thinking as the place was packed with what seemed to be kids taking their mom to go shopping for the day.

What was interesting to me was that in some stores there were these signs on the shelves saying “This is a perfect gift for moms” where at first there didn’t seem to be any real theme to it. For example, at first you would see one on the shelf that sells candy and then the next one would be in the area that sells light-blubs. It wasn’t until I went to the computer section when it dawned on me.

Basically, I saw the same signage in the section that sold computer routers and of course my first reaction was “I’m sure every mother in the world wants a router for Mother’s day.” Having more knowledge in this space I was able to see that the product had a crazy markup on it. Hence, the company makes more money and so it would make sense that they are trying to convince people to buy it.

I guess that goes to show that if you are one of those people who are desperately looking for a gift the last minute and are solely relying on the store to give you knowledge on what’s best prepare to pay more than you should in a lot of cases. Always pays to do your own research as oppose to relying on like the salesmen.

This was kind of interesting I thought. I went into this video game store looking for a gift and for this store in particular I know they sell second hand items as well. So you always need to make sure that they aren’t selling you something used as new. To my surprise, when you looked at the shelf there didn’t seem to be any products labelled as “used” as oppose to “recycled” as you can see here:

What an interesting marketing tactic I thought to capitalize on people who want to say buy green without the negative perception that usually comes with buying used products. At the same time, I was wondering if this is borderline misleading though. Usually when I think of recycling tangible items I think of people breaking down the material to make something new out of it. Whereas in this case it is mostly repackaging the used item. For example, someone selling their used car and saying it is a recycled vehicle seems a little off. Will be interesting to see if it actually works for them and how well.

I was listening to some people today talking about how growing an online presence is difficult and that it was disheartening to see that a person who was willing to exploit sex as a way to get ahead get so much more progress. As a result, there was a debate about morality and how they were going to do it the right way. It resulted in some people saying you gotta do what you gotta do in the beginning to stand out. As you would imagine this debate got a little hairy.

This almost reminds me of debates such as saying nice guys finish last and therefore if you want to get ahead you have to be crude and be willing to step over everyone. It made me think too how a lot of this can simply come down to how people portray themselves differently in terms of say confidence. For example, you can argue that the people using the sex appeal know that it works in terms of getting attention and therefore they are more confident that they can get what they are after.

In many ways, it’s similar to people debating about relationships and how some people seem to be able to get all the attention despite having certain qualities that some wouldn’t deem as say desirable. So much psychology factors you have to think of when it comes to stuff like this though huh? I guess the bottom lime is you just have to put yourself in a position where you have the mentality and confidence that what you are doing is the right thing. And by that I don’t mean doing one thing and saying things would be so much easier if you did XYZ.

This episode started with a little switch up due to Team Power having less numbers again. This time trump decided to put Marilu into the team. The task this time required the two teams to create a silent movie commercial for the company Australian Gold. Essentially, they would have to advertise its sunscreen products in this mini movie. The project manager for Team Power was Trace and for Plan B it was Gary.

For myself, most of the interest in this episode was seeing how Gary would be as the project manager. It seemed like he did a pretty good job assigning people various roles. Overall his quirkiness didn’t seem to conflict too much. For their theme they seemed to have went with a concept where it’s like a semi dull moment which displays in black and white until the product is introduced where it basically livens up the mood.

For Plan B they went with a time traveller theme where it was a story about a caveman that travels in the future when Australian Gold is released and sure enough it is filled with like a fun beach atmosphere. A funny aspect of this was that Trace was the caveman which looked pretty funny. Even Ivanka couldn’t stop laughing at him when she saw it. A key difference between the two presentation was that Gary’s video highlighted one product whereas Trace’s had shots of all the products. That was ultimately the big decision maker it seemed as Trace’s team was chosen as the winner.

The boardroom was kind of interesting as it came down to Gary, Penn and Stephen. Penn was pretty much let go from the start as even Gary said he only brought him in because Trump asked for two people. When Stephen was asked how he felt Gary did he mention that he did an excellent job. This was kind of strange as Trump used that against him in a way saying how it is a dumb move to promote the person you are going against in the boardroom. Because of this, Trump decided to fire Stephen.

There was a funny ending too where usually when people get fired you see their post interview as they are driven off. In this one Stephen was saying in a chuckling voice that you need to disregard your morals and characters in order to be successful just like Donald Trump. Makes you wonder if he was serious but trying to mask it a little as to try and not burn bridges.

This episode seemed kind of interesting to me in terms of some business scenarios. It was definitely like a Trump family promotion one too. The task revolved around the two teams having to promote Melania Trump’s new skin care product by creating a two page ad tutorial. It seemed like it was a moisturizing cream of sort using caviar as the key ingredient. She happens to be Donald Trump’s wife too. The project manager for Team Power was Dennis and for Plan B it was Penn.

It seemed like Dennis was out of his league in terms of a leadership role for the most part as his teammates were doing most of the actual work and delegating whereas he seemed to spew out random thoughts and ideas. Plan B seemed rather cohesive. There was an inserting moment in Plan B during the time they were thinking of slogans for the product. At first they came up with the phrase “Nourish your skin with caviar” which they were all excited about and went with.

After thinking it through, some people in the team were saying how it didn’t feel original enough. Penn apparently was thinking of a new one though and suggested the idea of “Let your skin taste the luxury.” Even I was thinking at how much better that was and at the same time how much of a profound difference a simple slogan could do for a product in terms of branding.

The ad itself was pretty similar for both teams. There was one fatal flaw in Team Power’s ad though as on the very top of one of its pages it misspelled the person’s name and said “Milania” instead of “Melania.” Interestingly enough, no one on the team caught the error and even Dennis signed off on it. When it came to the presentation itself the people judging the ad, including Melania herself, definitely did notice the error. Sure enough, Team power was still oblivious about it.

Team Power’s presentation did seem sharper and more personable overall. Penn made a mistake for Plan B where he identified Melania as the spokesperson for the brand which wasn’t a good idea as it implied that she is say some kind of actor that was hired to talk positive about it. The actual deliberation of the task to find a winner was kind of abrupt too. While normally in the boardroom they would thoroughly go over the positive and negatives for each team, for Team Power Trump was saying how there was no point as the misspelling of the name was so big that he wanted to get to the point and say that they lost.

Who was getting fired was pretty predictable too after that as Dennis pretty much had a target on his back since he was the project manager and personally gave the okay for all the work done. Sure enough, indeed he was fired. Again, for me in this episode the main thing that stuck out to me was how big of a difference a good slogan could do for a product. Sure makes you think twice if next time you feel it is something that doesn’t deserve any real attention in your overall marketing plan.