This week the two teams were presented with a rather unusual task revolving around the company Australian Gold. Essentially, each team had to create a interactive display within a 10 by 10 glass box to hopefully engage the public about the company’s line of of products such as sun tanning lotion. The teams would be judged on creativity, brand messaging as well as how much of an impact it has to the people on the outside. The project manager for the women was La Toya Jackson and for the men it was Mark McGrath.
La Toya isn’t getting many breaks throughout this season so far I say as she seems unable to envision an end goal to be able to take charge. That kind of showed during this task too as it was one of those leadership styles where a person just asks you to do something good. Overall, the idea the women came up with wasn’t very creative as it was essentially just a bunch of models in a beach type of setting needing sun tanning products.
The men were far more creative as they had a theme to create a pirate setting in the box as if they have discovered some valuable treasure in the form of Australian gold products. They even created a priate chant and all to create a theme for it. For La Toya, at the last minute she felt that she needed to be more original with the beach theme and decided to add snow to it. It even came across as confusing and something that was thought of last minute.
Overall it appeared that the men created more buzz with their presentation while the women did abetter job with brand integration. This was interesting as in the end the executives thought that the men’s was a lot more entertaining. However, they didn’t really see how a pirate theme matched their brand at all. As a result, the executives chose the women as the winner.
In the boardroom the men appeared to be really attacking Gary as a liability. For example, they pressed on a point that he came across as very aggressive to the executives where they thought he could mislead people into thinking that he was a representative of the company. As well, most people on the team simply don’t get along with his personality. When asked who to bring back to be fired, Mark simply said that he would bring Gary with him.
Before this though, Mark mentioned that if the reason they lost was because of the theme that he would take responsibility for the loss. Regardless of Gary being criticized for his behaviour, in the end Trump emphasized that it was theme that was the main reason for the loss. Therefore, Mark was fired. Guess this is an example too at how fast tides can turn where originally it looked like the men were going to ride the wave in sweeping the women one by one.