Marketing Dos & Don’ts From Last Night’s Celebrity Apprentice

by Gail Oliver, Marketing Consultant

Last night on the Celebrity Apprentice, there were two different episodes with two different marketing tasks. Here is my take on some of the marketing dos and don’ts.

Commercial for Neat Connect Scanners

The first task was to make a commercial for a company called Neat Connect, a scanner that lets you scan in your documents and it saves them digitally in the cloud. One team’s commercial focused on how this technology helps a woman de-clutter all the paper on her desk. The other commercial focused on saving tax receipts. I thought both commercials were not bad, but lacked the proper messaging.

The key to making a commercial or an ad, is to make the viewer feel like they need your product, and they need it now. The Neat Connect technology is actually pretty cool as it doesn’t just scan your documents, receipts, business cards, etc., but it turns them into digital information – where receipts become digital records with vendors and amounts, business cards become digital contacts, and documents become fully keyword searchable, so they are now easy to find, easy to access, and easy to share.

Where I thought the celebs’ commercials missed the mark, was that they were too narrow in their focus and the intelligence of the product didn’t come through. Think of how many homes each year suffer fires, floods, mud slides, hurricanes, tornadoes, etc. This technology really helps you avoid losing valuable documents. It doesn’t always have to replace the physical paper, but it makes a great back-up. I think if the celebs took this approach, the commercial would have been more powerful and included more of a sense of urgency to digitize all of your important paperwork.

Tasting Event for Luvo Frozen Foods

The second task was to host a tasting event for a company called Luvo. Luvo is a company in the frozen food market offering nutritious and healthy meals in eco-friendly packaging. They use certified organic and non-GMO ingredients with no artificial preservatives, flavors or colorings from farmers that do not use growth hormones or antibiotics, and all meals come in an environmentally safe paper pouch.

Where I thought the celebs’ presentations missed the mark was that they seemed focused more on entertaining the crowd (which is important) and not about detailing the key aspects of the products that competitors in this market lack. No one talked about the organic ingredients in each meal, the health benefits, the low calories, the little prep time, etc. They did focus a bit on the taste. It also would have been nice to have the microwave as part of the presentation, showing how quickly the meals heat up and how safe the packaging is.

Your Takeaway: Always remember when pitching your products, either in a commercial or presentation, to answer these questions – why do I want/need your products, why do I need them now, and how are they different and/or better than the competition?

Two back-to-back episodes meant two blog posts. Don’t worry, I’ll be writing about something else tomorrow … Gail