Apprentice Turns Avertising Agency

This week saw the Apprentice candidates become creatives for Ogilvy. They had to design a new brand and market it. The product... Tissues. The above is the winning advert. Many people are confused as to why this advert won. It looks cheap, tacky, blatant product placement and is generally shit. But that's exactly why it won.

I too thought Alan Sugar had got it wrong. He scathed Raef's team for not showing the product, not knowing what the advert was for and again not showing the product. What would have been the outcome, if they had set a chocolate bar and the result had been a drumming Gorilla?

Gorilla breaks all the rules of standard advertising. But it's allowed to. Dairy Milk is a well established brand that can afford not to show their product. "Atishu" and "I love my Tissue" do not have that luxury.

In today’s market you must please the client, stand out from the rest and be memorable. Atishu is so bad, but you remember it. Just like Michael Winner's Esure advert, the confused.com advert and Michael Barry's Cilit Bang. All shit, but memorable.

I must admit I preferred Raef's campaign. It was the lesser evil of the two. But I was judging it from a creative point of view, not the clients. And this is where the danger lies. When doing a campaign, we must not get carried away with wanting to make mini movies. It's the client’s money at the end of the day not your little "film project".

What do you think? Did the right campaign win? What would you have done in two days?