Celebrity Apprentice 1/17/08

[earthmamaNY]

OMG GENE GOT FIRED!!! WTH!? And was everybody in the world as stunned as I was when the girls lost this week???!!! Their presentation rocked! Last week Gene won by ignoring what the execs said they wanted, and this week the execs didn't like him for not listening even though he sent people to meet with them. Mike and I were there with our mouths dangling open. But then Gene was stupid and didn't put Nelly on the chopping block. OMG! OMG! OMG! Oh yeah, and Omarossa - girl get yourself a panty girdle, will ya? Donald Trump was 10000% right about what he said about Gene - marketing genious, brilliant innovator and thinker... also stubborn to the max and tough. He's used to being the emperor of his own empire, not playing by somebody else's rules... *tisk tisk*

Gene knew Omarossa was a cockroach, he called her that on week 1. He was trying to get Donald to elliminate her so he would be clear to win the whole thing, but Donald was telling him "Gene, I am not going to fire her, pick somebody else," and Gene was not going along with it. The Don was BEGGING HIM to pick Nelly so he wouldn't have to fire Gene. DUH!

And I said to my husband "Gene won 2 contests in a row almost single-handedly, and could easily have won this one too... without him there, it's going to be a bunch of fish flopping around out of water!" NONE of these people has real leadership skills IMO... Maybe Ms. O, but she blew it week 1 so I doubt she'll get another shot at it.

Did you notice that part of the criteria this week was selling the most printers? The Kodak execs voted AND they had to sell the most. I thought they had to sell prints! They just barely mentioned that criteria at the beginning and end of the show. That said, who picked their locations? I think the selling part was lame, to be honest. Seriously, who walking down the street is prepared to pay for and carry away a printer? They showed one in somebody's baby stroller. And of COURSE the Hydra team sold more - Alec Baldwin came and bailed out his little brother. Obviously he had no use for the printers, but wanted to help Stephen. Gene missed out on that. He should have whipped out the rolodex again.

I was disappointed this week, really. I thought the show was not very exciting except for Gene committing suicide there at the end, oh and the coffee thing. Before I forget again, how stupid is Kodak!? Seriously... "I don't care what the set-up looks like (and the Don's man said it looked like a dumpster) I want the word INK to be prominent." That is really what they said last night. Unbelievable.

And I will just say this one last thing - promise - Gene was right. Gene was right because Kodak IS still thought of as Gramdma by the fireplace, old-fashioned, been around forever... Gene's strategy was to remarket Kodak itself, then to tell people about the fabulous printer and let the product sell itself. I think even the Don said that - the product sells itself.

Did you see the ads Kodak was running between segments of the show???!!! AWFUL! Nothing innovative, nothing eye-catching and my main question after seeing the ad about 5 times was "Is it a photo printer, or can you print documents with it?" That question was not addressed. Kodak is about images, and the images in the commercial were lousy. What the heck was it anyway, a trojan horse??? What does that have to do with anything? And there was a lot of blah blah blah... my house is busy, so to be honest, whatever was SAID during the ad, I didn;t really get. Was it about cheap ink? Maybe, but if the printer doesn;t print documents and is for photos only, I don;t need it, no matter how cheap the ink is.

Going back to my point, Gene was being judged by what Kodak thinks of as the smartest kid in the class (who nobody has ever heard of), whereas Gene himself is a namebrand and why? Because he is a master marketer. If Kodak hired Gene to revamp their vision and marketing plan, you would NEVER have had that garbage commercial playing, and they WOULD see they need to be viewed by the nation as an innovative and dynamic company first, and then introduce the specific product they are pushing. If they believe they have already done that, they need to think again.

Yes, Kodak may be great, but on this one, they missed out on several huge things. Unfortunately Gene's scope was bigger than the task required and he had no authority to tell Kodak to shove their Hydra Air Stream Dumpster. He forgot who he was working for.