Teams Apollo and Synergy were sent to Heathrow’s Terminal 5 in the beginning of episode 2, not to go on vacation but to design an original beach accessory that holidaymakers would want to take on a beach vacation. The goal of the challenge is to create this original beach accessory and then sell the product to large chains.

Although pressed for time, it seems that the teams didn’t consider strategy much at all throughout their latest challenge. Instead of considering the various markets, or even the target audiences of the high street chains, it seems as though the teams considered the audience only after a product idea was suggested.

Although the challenge was business oriented, the teams used little strategy, forethought or even common sense in tackling this challenge. Team Synergy ultimately was able to create a product that could potentially sell, with one buyer placing an order for 100 items while team Apollo’s internal communications completely destroyed any chance of consensus, despite the team leader’s early attempt to control the group discussion.

Some of the weaknesses of the teams identified in this episode were the lack of constructive group communication and the lack of foresight in thinking the product through. In team Apollo, the chosen product was determined by the individual who shouted the loudest, which was ultimately discovered in the boardroom.

This was the first episode that we participated in the live discussion on Twitter. Using the #theapprentice hashtag, we contributed to conversations which every week can be followed by searching #theapprentice on Twitter.

As you can see in this diagram, there were many people tweeting about the episode while watching the show who included a hashtag (used for tracking discussions and trending topics) in their post.

This graph is also useful in determining which hashtag to use moving forward. We chose to use #theapprentice last night in our conversations because that is the hashtag used by the official Twitter account of BBC’s The Apprentice. According to the diagram above however, more of the audience were contributing by using #apprentice rather than #theapprentice, so from now on we’ll have to engage in the larger #apprentice conversation.

Unfortunately we could not give great comparison between the methods and process followed by either Apprentice team, because there simply seemed to be none whatsoever. Instead of choosing a target market, the teams created a product that could potentially serve a wide range of audiences and in the end had no interest from the buyers at all.

Team MTD at the very least would have given more thought and consideration to the target market and commerciality of the products rather than moving forward with the loudest idea. Hopefully the teams of the Apprentice will show more consideration to strategy moving forward, so then we could have more to write about!

Welcome to our new mini-series of blogs where we look at each episode of Lord Sugar’s The Apprentice and discuss the differences between how we, the integrated marketing agency Marketing Team Direct (or MTD for short), would have tackled the challenge using our effective approach.

In case you missed the first episode of this sixth series, the new candidates meet at midnight and they embark on a seventeen-hour overnight journey to buy, make and sell three kinds of sausages. They have to purchase the ingredients from a London meat market, have to create sausages in their own sausage factory, then sell their sausages to make a maximum profit.

The first key difference between teams Synergy (the men’s team) and Apollo (the women’s team) is that Synergy is going for a 40% meat, low cost, low quality sausage while Apollo is going for a 70% meat gourmet sausage which has higher associated costs and will ultimately sell for higher prices. Appropriately, Apollo sells in upscale Leadenhall Market, while Synergy opt for lower prices at Portobello Market.

MTD’s first step in working with clients is immersion, where we understand the vision, values and culture, market dynamics, customer relationships, current positioning and propositions. Both Apprentice teams did follow a similar process for a short while, as they considered who their target audiences were in their respective markets. As both groups are only in the bangers market for one short day, many of the immersion aspects will be more applicable to late Apprentice episodes when the teams work with real, established companies.

Interestingly enough, the show did not feature any of the teams discussing their competition. What are the market stalls next to them selling? The teams do consider how their packages of bangers will look to customers, and teams do realise the value of having the sausages cooking at the time, sizzling, having an appealing smell and being able to offer potential customers a taste. Using the grill becomes especially important when a local restaurant owner would like to taste the sausages before making a bulk purchase.

Team Synergy also missed a valuable opportunity in selling to those managing the other stalls. Neither team thought of other channels or outlets in which to sell sausages other than aimlessly running to businesses and restaurants, and finally neither team identified a story that they could rally behind and communicate to customers.

If team MTD were competing on the Apprentice, we would be looking for competitive advantage, not only in relation to our nemesis team but from the competing market stalls. How could we make a sausage so much more?

Very much unlike the environment created on the television show, we would insist on taking more that seventeen hours to learn about our new client and understand their place in the market to deliver true competitive advantage that brings increased sales and profitability for much longer than one day.

Unfortunately we do not all retreat to a fancy large West End townhouse at the end of the day, but we do get great satisfaction from the work that we do. Hope you will enjoy our upcoming blog posts on the Apprentice, and follow our live Tweets on how the teams are handling the competitive advantage!

1. The Power of Narrative

When you tell a story, it’s like the audience can’t help but inject themselves into what is being described. Think about some really meaningful presentations that you’ve attended or even watched online. The ones that you remember, the ones that stick in your brain most likely told a story. Our brains store information in narratives, which is why if you think back to something you did last week or last month, you will remember the experience, what you did, how you felt, not just one specific detail.

Your life adventures become stories in your mind, which is why you can remember what you were doing, what the weather was like, or other contextual seemingly insignificant details of the day when something important happens. I personally remember every last detail of my day on September 11, 2001 and I also remember what I was doing when I found out that the late Princess Diana was in a car accident. I was younger and living in Canada and I wasn’t quite sure who she was. I remember telling my mum that this person had been in a car accident, and I can still see the expression on her face as she ran into the room and watched the television with me.

What did I just do? In trying to communicate my point and to demonstrate the power of narrative, I just told a story. While you were reading my story, you also went back in your mind and pulled out some stories that you remember vividly from important days in your life.

2. Emotion

In the same way that emotion propels people to share videos that become very popular, storytelling allows companies to reach their audiences emotionally.  I remember reading about some research that had been conducted about storytelling in fundraising. A group of research subjects had been paid £20 pounds each to participate in a research study. There were some questionnaires that the participants filled out, then after they were finished, they were handed a package, and asked to open it before they left.

Each person involved in the study received their £20 payment in pound coins in an envelope, and were given a letter. Half of the participants received a letter from a charity, describing need. They provided facts and statistics to document how great the need was and were asking participants to contribute some of their newly earned participant money to the charity. The other half of the participants received a letter from the charity telling the story of a boy. The story of the boy recounted a brief summary of his life, how he got into the situation and how he would get out of the situation. This letter also asked participants to use an envelope provided to make a donation to the charity with their earnings.

The end result of the experiment was that the test group that had received and read the story of the boy, instead of receiving the letter containing facts that described how urgent the demand for need was, donated 50% more of their newfound earnings to the charity than the group that received facts.

3. Brand Personality

What better way to communicate your brand personality than through a story? You can create the ideal atmosphere, dialogue and tone. One fun and notable example of brand personality in a television commercial includes the Apple vs. PC ads. Apple literally picked a person, as if they represented the entire company and also picked a person to play the opposing character, someone who embodied a stereotype and who could contrast with the main character. The series of these commercials told a story so that eventually, we all knew that there was prior conflict and disagreement, allowing the style and content of the commercials to change as audiences became more familiar.

4. Blogs and Microblogs

Although the most popular blogs today are information driven (such as this one), blogs began as a medium for people to communicate their stories. Blogs communicate people’s daily lives, and now no example is more relevant than microblogging in Twitter and Facebook. People have turned their entire lives into stories, and in turn, these same people love to consume and be entertained by other people’s stories, even if they may be limited to 140 characters at a time.

5. The Storyteller

The storyteller that you choose is both the message and the medium. Are you communicating a story online? Is it a radio ad? The medium is critical to the message as we all know, and using a creative means to communicate the story will have a powerful impact on the message.

6. Experiences

Storytelling becomes especially effective when the audience and their friends or peer group are involved. Shared experiences will be recounted many times and can provide even more life to your idea. Instead of telling an audience a story, it can be even more effective if they experience or live your story. Maybe you have a very specific target audience who have some similar challenges and successes. Involving them and their experiences in the story will further reinforce this.

7. Conviction

If you hear something, you may or may not believe it to be true. If someone tells you a story about it, it’s much more believable. The same works for information received through the moral of a story. For conviction, it is also imperative that the medium doing the storytelling, whether a person’s voice, text or through movements and actions, that it is appropriate for the medium. Mediums used effectively for storytelling will increase the conviction and the authenticity of the message.

8. Testimonials

Why are testimonials used so frequently? People find comfort in stories and look for stories from others in order to create a context for a potential business opportunity or potential purchase. With a testimonial you not only get a seal of approval that reduces your perceived risk, but you also get a story about the company or product. The story, introducing characters and having a setting will increase the value of the testimonial to the audience. The customer will remember the story long after they remember the kudos, and along with the story will remember the message that comes with it, maintaining top of mind awareness.

9. The Story Evolves- The Brand Story

What do we mean by brand story? Your brand story is the story that makes your brand come to life. How you would describe your brand in 60 seconds if you were talking to a potential investor for example. Do you know what you would say? It’s competitive advantage and it’s something that you’ve identified to be unique and relevant to your organisation, product or service. It’s putting into words or images why exactly you are an amazing company and why you have a unique offering. There is no limit to how you tell your brand story, but it’s imperative that you do. If you are unable to tell us the story in 60 seconds, you should take some time to think about it.

Once you have the brand story, it should be communicated and lived throughout your organisation. Every customer, employee and client should know what your brand story is, so that they see you in narrative form, not just as a brick and mortar shop, or as a website. Your brand needs to be friends with your community, and the best and most effective way of doing that is to tell your brand story. As varied, magical and unique as stories can be, so can be the story of your company.

Your brand story should have the personality of your brand, be indescribably convincing and persuasive, and be creative, original and authentic.

10. Lasting Impression

As mentioned in the beginning, one of the most important benefits of using storytelling in your marketing efforts is the lasting impression it leaves with your audience.

The purpose of this entry was to provide some insight on storytelling, and to hopefully spark an idea in your head of a way that you can incorporate storytelling into your marketing efforts. Of course storytelling is not the only way to communicate and depending on the context, it may not be the most effective for the medium or audience. Just a thought! We would love to continue the discussion on Facebook.
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When we’re born a very important record begins, our medical record. Whether in a secure computer database or in a file at your family medical clinic, somewhere there exists a comprehensive description of your medical history. Doctor’s visits, ailments, medication history and family background are all included. This medical record is not overly relevant to your every day life, but can be very helpful to a specialist in making suggestions to improve your health whether a routine visit or an emergency situation.

Let’s say your doctor retires, you move to different city, or find yourself in the emergency room in the middle of the night. Whether time sensitive or not, in order for the doctor to make an accurate and helpful diagnosis, a key tool that enables them to recognize the problem and construct an optimal recovery plan is your medical record.

Meet Joe. Despite regularly getting a full night’s sleep and trying to eat right, Joe is always tired and never feels refreshed. Joe decides to go visit his doctor to see if they can suggest possible causes and recommend treatment. The doctor examines Joe’s medical history and makes a recommendation based on all the available information.

Joe’s doctor is a specialist in asking the right questions and in analyzing data provided by Joe’s medical records. Without knowing Joe’s medical and family histories and list of current medications, the doctor would not have been able to prescribe an effective and appropriate treatment plan that would be medically appropriate to improve Joe’s health and well being.

Think of your friendly neighborhood integrated marketing agency as a family doctor. An integrated marketing agency, just like a doctor, needs to understand your company’s personality and family history in order to provide or suggest the best possible course of treatment. Similarly, doctors have to ask patients questions to find out certain pieces of information that a patient may not deem relevant. If doctors were only able to diagnose based on the information provided by patients and were not able to ask questions and run tests, the treatment plan provided by the doctor would not be very effective in healing the ailments, or improving the patient’s condition.

If Joe is your business, and an integrated marketing agency is your doctor, one of the most valuable and critical pieces required to correctly identify areas of improvement is information. In order to provide an effective solution or make recommendations, an integrated marketing agency needs to have all the facts, even facts that you don’t believe are important so that they, as specialists in their field, can implement solutions that will improve your return on investment, boost sales and address any other areas of opportunity.

Your doctor is a specialist in what they do, but is a generalist for your health. In the same way that you can’t go straight to see an ear nose and throat specialist when you have the sniffles, an integrated marketing agency can help ask the tough questions, analyze the data, and be your specialist who is a generalist, who can implement a treatment plan that gets at the root of the issues- the real root, not necessarily that root that you’ve identified.

If you’ve been on our homepage this week, you may have noticed our new banner, which illustrates our competitive advantage message. If you’re interested in how the image of Frank and his giant prize winning marrow was created, here’s the photographer Stephen Shepherd’s account:

“I had to source a giant marrow, so instead of getting a model maker to mock something up, I went to the Royal Bath and West show. They have a giant vegetable competition, where I managed to talk to the winner of the Giant Marrow category. He’d grown it purely for the show and was more than happy to sell it.

At this size they are not good for eating and this way he didn’t have to worry about transportation and disposal.

Because the marrow has very heavy, we had to lighten it up a bit by cutting a large section from the back and hollow it out, so what you see in the picture is a prize winning, giant marrow shell.

My feeling is that although hollow, it still looks heavy. A light polystyrene model (and I have seen them) just doesn’t look right because the human model finds it hard to make us believe the object is heavy and real.”

I especially like the glint in Frank’s eye! He certainly knows something we don’t, and that’s his competitive advantage.

To find out more about Stephen’s work, please visit his photographer’s website.