Week 8: The end of Mona

Hurrah! Mona finally has gone. How she has lasted this long, is simply amazing to me.

She thinks she is a strong character, that she has skills and was a real contender. From week one I have doubted what she was doing there. She didn’t even make good telly apart from her stilted comments, pointed objections and pedestrian teamwork. OK so last week she showed she could sell. But only at a very basic level. She doesn’t have the capabilities to be creative or original. And that’s by her own admission. I was even more surprised to see how many of the audience of “You’re Fired!” thought that Sir Alan got it wrong. The only thing Sir Alan got wrong was by letting her stay as long as he did!

So this week’s task. Re-brand Margate.

Debra’s team was bold. Targeting the gay market to re-brand the knackered old seaside town. An excellent idea, terribly executed. Indeed you might think that the community or marketing professionals might have taken exception. However they didn’t. When you look at the poster and leaflet it was a classic cock-up. The team forgot the obvious. Keep it simple.

A marketing campaign needs to have consistency, a clear message and the images and words need to reflect that concept. The team lost because the execution was so poor. It’s a shame because had they got their execution right, with Howard’s strong pitching – they could easily have won it.

Let me tell you that the BBC bottled it. According to my sources, Mona made some comments during the task demonstrating that perhaps she’s not as gay friendly as she was portrayed. Even so, she didn’t come across as someone who feels that comfortable with our more inclusive culture. Indeed there are quite a few things that were chopped from this episode. Anyone notice that they had to put together a radio advert as well? No? You missed it? Oh, it was cut. And that’s why the boardroom was so choppy this week. Did you notice that the editing was all over the place?

Anyway – back to the job in hand. Mona is one of those people who picks up what people are saying and packages up comments and then tries to pretend she was at the centre of the action. So she was the right person to go this week, despite Debra’s abrasive manner and lack of leadership skills.

So let’s have a look at the others. Yasmina led her team well but clashed with Lorraine. What a surprise. Ben was suitably useless and Kate pitched well. I think Kate is being presented as the full package and Yasmina as the slightly awkward character. As for James? He’s being set up for the fall as the court jester and Howard as a safe pair of hands who doesn’t have the cut and thrust required. So there we have it. I think we are heading for our first all female final!

As for next week? Picking products to sell at a trade fair. Sounds a bit dull to me. A rerun of last week’s task in a different environment. Please can someone at TalkBack hire someone to invent some new tasks!

More next week as someone will inevitable get the chop! And do feel free to download this week’s podcast . My guests include series 4 super hunk Alex Wotherspoon and Sir Alan’s PR man, Andrew Bloch, founding partner of Frank PR.