The Apprentice

The apprentice. Irish version. Week 2.

The apprentice – Irish version- is a reality TV show modeled on the American series of the same name, which stars entrepreneur Donald Trump, but it has been adapted for different countries, in this case, for Ireland.

There is a group of business contestants that will compete. The last person standing will be "hired" as the Celebrity Apprentice for the greater goal of gaining a job in Bill Cullen’s organization, a worldwide famous businessman and have the honor to sign a 100,000 euros worth contract.

Every week, the celebrity contestants will work in two teams, young VS. Experience, each under the guidance of a designated project manager, also known as PM, to compete in business-driven tasks around Ireland, using their proven business acumen, to win challenges. Contestants are subjected to long hours, grueling deadlines, intellectual challenges, personality clashes and intense scrutiny under the careful watch of Bill Cullen and his advisors.

Certain challenges, like this week’s, encourage contestants to produce a cd and design the newspaper ad campaign, the sleeve and poster. 100,000 copies of the winning CD will be given away free with some Irish well-known newspaper. Each team had to pick 10 new Irish music tracks to feature on the CD. They had to choose the artists for the CD, design the artwork, and come up with a name, Zest team didn’t do a great job in picking a significative and resemblance image of Ireland for the cover of the CD according to the judges. Joanne, was Zest group’s PM and had experience in the area and seemed pretty confident in leading the task. Zest, came up with the name ‘Backstage Pass’ for their CD, which I thought worked well as it played on the exclusivity of the disc while team Spirit led by Chris came up with ‘Toe Tapping Talents’. It conjured up images of River dance, and trade sessions in pubs, not really where Ireland’s best young band talent want to be seen and certainly not fitting...