Comments on: Icarus meets the Phoenix, that crazy Donald Trump

By: Discourse.net

Discourse.net — Thu, 06 Apr 2006 11:02:35 +0000

Grant McCracken Is Interesting

I suspect that Grant McCracken’s deconstruction of marketing blog, This Blog Sits at the (Intersection of Anthropology and Economics) is filled with rare insight interspersed with some small bits of utter nonsense. But I do not have great confidence in…

By: Jack Yan

Jack Yan — Fri, 17 Mar 2006 06:48:47 +0000

I won’t comment this time on Mr Trump, but I have to say some of the ideas these contestants come up with are abysmal. Makes me wonder what is being taught in B-schools.

By: Donny H

Donny H — Fri, 17 Mar 2006 06:11:06 +0000

Seems silly and edgy marketing is especially important to brand promoting these days. A very recent issue of Businessweek magazine speaks on major players in the Spanish market choosing this direction on the heels of traditionally producing very earnest stylized branding and advertisment packages.

By: Grant

Grant — Wed, 15 Mar 2006 17:03:25 +0000

Tom, That’s it, surely no one who knows anything about the capitalism, corporation, marketing or the world watches the show. What sort advertiser would want these demographics? Thanks, Grant

By: Tom Guarriello

Tom Guarriello — Wed, 15 Mar 2006 15:05:22 +0000

Boy, I couldn’t agree with you more, Grant. People who believe Trump method of “inteviewing” leaders by presenting this kind of (heavily edited) nonsense have no more idea of what it takes to run a business than they do of how to split an atom.

By: Grant

Grant — Wed, 15 Mar 2006 14:14:06 +0000

Auto, thanks, well said, and most amusing, I think maybe the thing to do here is to lock Donald Trump and, say, Sergio Zyman in a corporate boardroom/wire cage. The rule: they can only talk about marketing. Thanks, Grant

By: Auto

Auto — Wed, 15 Mar 2006 14:08:19 +0000

I’ve only seen the show once, an episode where the teams worked with Pepsi’s marketing/package design staff to come up with a new bottle and marketing campaign.

Their ideas were laughably retarded — what passes for creativity from second year MBAs going to work for Goldman in corporate finance who are taking a marketing class needed to graduate.

My sense is that winners and losers are determined more by personality and inter-personal dynamics than by being creative and having genuinely clever ideas. The more contestants behave like Trump wanna-be’s, the better their chances to advancing into the next round.

I once heard a woman say that one of her law professors had told the class that his college age daughter and her friends liked to play a game called “How much would you have to be paid to have sex with . . .?”

The kids decided that in the case of The Donald, all the money in the world was not enough.

The episode I saw showed the inside of Trump’s apartment. Apparently, he and Saddam Hussein have the same interior designer.

Ugliest.apartment.ever.

By: Grant

Grant — Wed, 15 Mar 2006 13:27:39 +0000

T.O.M. and Mike, yes, but why did they have this idea. I would argue that did it because it made for “good television.” And if money is the problem, they can surely give them more. It ends up looking like a skit at camp or junior high, something sustained by energetic young people who don’t mind making themselves look ridiculous. But it isnt camp and it isnt junior high, it’s marketing and, now to address Mike’s question, that turns out to be something, in the best cases, very smart people and corporations spend lots of time, money and talent working out, drawing upon massive amounts of intelligence, imagination and strategic firepower. But even in the worst of cases, its neve as bad as this. I mean, you’d have to be a real estate developer to think this has anything to do with marketing. Wait a second… Thanks, Grant

By: Mike

Mike — Wed, 15 Mar 2006 13:12:21 +0000

Could you elaborate further on this topic for the naive college crowd. It’s silly marketing but why isn’t it marketing. Thanks.

By: The Owner's Manual

The Owner's Manual — Wed, 15 Mar 2006 11:27:32 +0000

The contestants came up with the idea of the bathrobes. They were not ‘obliged’ to.

Perhaps this is more an indication of what marketing means to college-educated, successful-in-their-own-field, young entrepreneurs.

Given the amount of money the candidates have to spend on their campaigns, I wouldn’t expect much, anyway.