Apprentice Recap: Microsoft LiveMeeting - and then there were two

It was Microsoft’s week on the Apprentice. Two MS execs came on the show to help promote Microsoft Office LiveMeeting. In my opinion, both teams performed poorly on the task they were given - but one team performed horribly. Here’s my recap:

The task

For this 2-on-2 task, the teams were given the task of creating a 60-second promotional and informational video for Microsoft OfficeLive Meeting. The main idea behind live meeting is real-time collaboration without travel. Both groups seemed to focus in on the “without travel” a little too much, and not enough on the “real-time collaboration” aspect of LiveMeeting.

The losing video

The losing ad appealed to people hopped up on methamphetamines. They originally had what the editor called “2 to 3 mintues” of content planned - and only 60 seconds to do it in. So they just decided to make everything incredibly fast and unreadable. The result? A bunch of jumbled text. It’s like someone overclocked their DVD player or something.

The winning video

The winning video was a simple story-line. Randall needs a file, Rebecca is sending it. Randall is impatient (”I hate waiting for these large files”). Randall flees the office - meets Rebecca in an empty conference room. Where is everyone? “Delays out of Chicago…” Darn that Chicago… Then it goes into hilights of using MS Office Live Meeting.

Overall impressions

Neither team really caught what MS Office LiveMeeting is supposed to do - Randall was leaving was because “Argh…. I hate waiting for these large files…” so he got up and flew out? Who would ever be that impatient (or stupid?) [And as far as I know, Office LiveMeeting doesn't have some magic compression algorithm that takes away all of the wait for large files...]

The losing group thought “Oh, it cuts down on travel.” and decided to base their original idea on that - and although that’s a good way that LiveMeeting would help you - it isn’t the main point. People have been avoiding travel by emailing files for ages. The main point is the SIMULTANEOUS interaction (without travel).

A better concept (it’s not hard)

A much better concept would be this (and this is just a first-round concept… it would obviously be fine-tuned before production):

Use a sports analogy to show productivity gains from simultaneous work.

Have a basketball team on the court - playing against another team. The team with the ball passes the ball - but suddenly it is clear that the only person on that team that can move is the “guy with the ball.” (If they had a bigger budget, they could make the “inactive players” black and white) The 5 guys from the other team will quickly swarm the one guy with the ball.

Then have a voice over that says “Are you sick of waiting to get the ball before you can do anything? So are we. Now, you don’t have to”
(then show clip of team actually passing, running picks… etc.)

Then do a voiceover introducing saying “With LiveMeeting, you can work simultaneously as a team and beat your competition” or something like that. The 60 second spot only really needs to teach them that one concept, and spark enough interest to get them to view the website.

One way to tie this in more to the office is to turn the basketball scene into the daydream of someone in the office - who is sitting bored at his desk playing with one of those desktop basketball shooter things. Then someone comes up to him and says “Did you get the file yet?” or something… (I would probably not go this route in the 60 second window because it would make it too long… stick with the simple concept… but for a longer intro to a promotional video, I think this would be a good idea)

There are infinite ways to creatively describe what LiveMeeting does - and both teams chose none of them. I hope that Donald likes them - because from what I’ve seen - their lack of ingenuity or ability to think beyond the obvious level would have Microsoft saying to them “You’re not hired” at a screening interview.

The Boardroom

Donald gave both members of the losing team the axe after making them both fight for their life. So now it’s down to Randall versus Rebecca. I think it should be easy to tell who is going to win out of these two - Rebecca is okay, but she’s no Randall.