Celebrity Apprentice Episode 2

[Steve]

The two teams split up to create a commercial for Pedigree pet food that promoted the adoption of pets. Did you see this episode? It was pretty good. Gene Simmons again stole the show. He got Ivanka upset when she walked in and wanted an update. You can see the entire episode here. http://www.nbc.com/The_Celebrity_App...episodes.shtml What did you think of the show?

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[Steve]

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Did anyone see this latest episode? I can't believe the Kodak execs fired Gene Simmons! OMG his teams presentation was so much better. WOW the show is going to be a lot more different with him gone. Gene was definitely an enigma on the show.

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Originally Posted by [b

Quote[/b] (Team Gopher @ Jan. 17 2008,10:41)]Did anyone see this latest episode?

I can't believe the Kodak execs fired Gene Simmons!

OMG his teams presentation was so much better.

WOW the show is going to be a lot more different with him gone. Gene was definitely an enigma on the show.

What are you talking about Gene Simons being fired! I didnt see it.

[StartALawnCareBusiness]

Gene gave Trump no choice.

The lesson here is always have your top guy speak to their top guy when it is such an important assignment. The girls he sent to the initial meeting with Kodak were incapable of sumizing the assigment.

I wonder how much Kodak paid to be on that episode. They just received millions of dollars worth of advertising.

Steve, you should contact Trump with an idea of allowing the celebs come up with a marketing campaign for Gopher Software.

Keith

[Steve]

Keith,

I am glad you brought this up. Good stuff here to talk about.

From Keith:

Originally Posted by [b

Quote[/b] ]The lesson here is always have your top guy speak to their top guy when it is such an important assignment. The girls he sent to the initial meeting with Kodak were incapable of sumizing the assigment.

I wanted to point out something that is fascinating to me. Gene and his business partner run a marketing company. Read more about that here.

His marketing firm does the marketing for Indy racing. There is a great story behind how he landed this job and I wanted to quote the article from a blog here.

Originally Posted by [b

Quote[/b] ]DON'T LET THE TONGUE, big ego and rock 'n' roll past fool you. When it comes to making money, Gene Simmons is serious. Serious as cancer. And with the advent of Simmons Abramson Marketing, a partnership with former "Pee-Wee's Playhouse" producer Richard Abramson, he thinks he can make money for you, too.

Of course, any marketer looking to hitch its wagon to the Simmons Abramson experience will have to buckle up for the ride. After all, Simmons is the guy who refused to use the preferred acronym for his first client, Indy Racing League, because IRL sounds "corporate and worse" (worse, in this case, being "a disease").

According to Mr. Simmons, the first thing he told Indy representatives was: "Indy's fantastic, but your logo sucks." He had a few other comments as well. "The Indy Racing League used to be No. 1," he says. "Nascar eclipsed it and left it in the dust…because, quite frankly, Nascar did a better job of it." But Simmons Abramson, which partnered with Indy in January, set out to change all that.

After you read this, let me know if this at all effects your view of how he handled the situation.

Originally Posted by [b

Quote[/b] ]I wonder how much Kodak paid to be on that episode. They just received millions of dollars worth of advertising.

I believe they paid $3 million which was split between Donald Trump, Mark Burnett (creator/producer), and NBC.

A few notes...

Gene did the wrong thing in my opinion, too... HE should have been the one to meet with the Kodak execs... but don't tell him that. Gene's a tough guy, just like Trump said. He'll go to the grave believing that he did the right thing from top to bottom on EVERYTHING he does in business.

When Trump said something about who Gene would bring back, he was hinting to take two people that Gene did not believe needed to be fired. Gene HATES Omarosa... so naturally, Gene picked her, thinking that he could talk Trump into firing her... when Trump told him that he HAD to pick another person, Gene thought this (and thought it in less than a millisecond): "Well, Trump isn't interested in firing Omarosa, but I'm bringing her in, anyway... I don't want to see either of the two fired that Trump has in mind because I think they're great in business... so I'll bring in the LEAST likely person to be fired and force him to fire Omarosa or me.... most likely me, but that's the way it goes... I won't let him fire the other two on MY watch..." Think about it for a second... watch it again... I guarantee you that if you asked Gene Simmons for a hard answer to why he brought in who he did instead of who he KNEW Trump wanted to fire, and that's EXACLTY what he would tell you!

Gene's a smart guy.... smart to the point of being a genious... look at how far he took he took KISS.... and yes, most of that was HIS doing... study up on it.

I knew about him being involved with Indy Racing.... he's going to bring them back to such a point of awareness that NASCAR will be looking at Indy's tailpipes within 5 years!

Finally, Steve, how did you come up with that $3m number for how much Kodak paid to be on Trump's show?

.....and to tie in with the wrestling post, Vince McMahon will be next week's "client"..... Vince McMahon, for those of you living in the dark ages, is the CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE (formerly WWF)). I CAN'T WAIT!!!

[Steve]

Originally Posted by [b

Quote[/b] ]Gene did the wrong thing in my opinion, too... HE should have been the one to meet with the Kodak execs... but don't tell him that. Gene's a tough guy, just like Trump said. He'll go to the grave believing that he did the right thing from top to bottom on EVERYTHING he does in business.

When Trump said something about who Gene would bring back, he was hinting to take two people that Gene did not believe needed to be fired. Gene HATES Omarosa... so naturally, Gene picked her, thinking that he could talk Trump into firing her... when Trump told him that he HAD to pick another person, Gene thought this (and thought it in less than a millisecond): "Well, Trump isn't interested in firing Omarosa, but I'm bringing her in, anyway... I don't want to see either of the two fired that Trump has in mind because I think they're great in business... so I'll bring in the LEAST likely person to be fired and force him to fire Omarosa or me.... most likely me, but that's the way it goes... I won't let him fire the other two on MY watch..." Think about it for a second... watch it again... I guarantee you that if you asked Gene Simmons for a hard answer to why he brought in who he did instead of who he KNEW Trump wanted to fire, and that's EXACLTY what he would tell you!

Gene pushed Trump to fire him no doubt. I had heard later that he needed to leave to spend more time on his reality show and he was getting ready to tour with Kiss.

I think Gene is the top dog in his arena and it's difficult if next to impossible to think you can get him to answer to a 'boss' in this case Trump. He pushed Trump and Trump fired him. I think it was a bad move for the show, but it's Trump's show.

Gene knows how to get the consumer to become enveloped by a brand. After all he founded a band who has the most recognized brand ever. People have tattoos of kiss on themselves or tattoos of Gene on themselves. How many people have a tattoo of Kodak?

I really what Gene was doing was to get the consumer to wrap themselves around the Kodak brand, by coming up with the motto 'its a Kodak world.' Or what ever it was. Then once he was able to get that feeling out there, Kodak could then sell ink.

To Gene I think the brand was more important and then you could later push the ink. He didn't feel you push the ink. Ink is just ink. It's a commodity. Ultimately it's the value of the brand that will command a higher perceived value of the ink.

So although he didn't PUSH the ink, I do think he had the better bigger picture. But that's just my thought.

Any reflections on this?

Originally Posted by [b

Quote[/b] ]Finally, Steve, how did you come up with that $3m number for how much Kodak paid to be on Trump's show?

I had read an article about it and I bet if I look, I could find it. The premise of the article was this. NBC didn't want to do another Apprentice because the ratings were way down, so Mark Burnett and Donald came up with making a celebrity version of it to liven things up. NBC then would only agree to it if they got a third of the product placement fee which is what the company like Kodak pays to be the point of focus on the show. The article said the fee was $3 million.

I totally agree... that's what Gene was thinking... Brand awareness... but I guess the big wigs at Kodak were wanting to push the ink (it's some kind of new ink, I think )....

Gene's the man... no doubt. He's got me hooked on this season.... I'll watch it still.... =)

[Steve]

Originally Posted by [b

Quote[/b] ]I totally agree... that's what Gene was thinking... Brand awareness... but I guess the big wigs at Kodak were wanting to push the ink (it's some kind of new ink, I think )....

The Kodak execs seemed miffed that Gene didn't personally meet them. I think that was a big reason why they didn't choose him to win.

He has a very strong personality and maybe that rubbed them the wrong way.

The funny thing is, what did those two Kodak execs ever really do? What did they ever accomplish? Did they create Kodak?
For all we know, they could have just been hired ! If you look at Kodak's stock over the last 5 years, it's in the dog house, so the very least they should have done is to give Gene some credit and try something different.

I really think Gene was right when he said he was right and they were wrong. Those steering the Kodak ship have got to try something different.

What are your thoughts?

Yeah... totally... after seeing that, they DEFINITELY should not have been so harsh on Gene.