Kicking Them When They're Down

Watching this years series of 'The Apprentice USA' you get a strong sense of the use of product placement that goes on in the States.








Thankfully, product placement in TV programmes has been outlawed in the UK. That's why on Coronation Street, instead of asking Betty behind the bar for a pint of Boddingtons, they'll ask for a "pint". Compare that to an episode of 'Friends' for instance, where Joey comes in yelling "Boddingtons! I'd like another frosty one of those bad boys!" It's just a different world over there where not-so-sublininal advertising is king.

So back to The Apprentice. For those of you that don't know the format of the programme, it involves two teams of job hopefuls who are sent out to each perform the same task. The team that loses, either by making the least profit or by failing to impress the judges gets sent to the board room where on of them gets sent packing to the local job centre.
After Donald Trump has sent them out on a task to flog beefburgers in Times Square or convince kids into spending their money on a minature golf course there's the indignity of the board room. Here the losing side all yell and scream at each other until one person thinks "sod this, I'm shutting up". It's then up to the person with the biggest gob to stick the knive in.
Eventually, one person gets "fired" and leaves the show.

Then is when the shows producers stick the boot in. As the losing contestent does the walk of shame to the taxi, the very forst thing they see happens to be a sign with the words "Find your perfect job at Yahoo!" illuminated infront of them.
I'm fully aware how advertising works and how companies arget certain audiences, but shurely just laughing and pointing at the loser would be more subtle?

Thankfully, our version with Sir Alan Sugar is shown on the advert-free BBC.