Week 8: MarGAY madness

After a couple of weeks away I am back on top blogging form to take up the reins from the very capable Gina Dyer who has done a sterling job keeping the blog as entertaining as ever.

And what a week to come back to - ok so I missed ripping into Pantsman about his humiliating and hilarious exit and am aghast at the fact that the little weasel with the scholarship to Sandhurst is still in the running. But hey, life goes on...

So this week Sir Alan met the gang at the O2 Arena and explained that a rebrand turned the world’s most expensive yet pointless marquee into a money-making machine-cum-venue and that’s what the teams have to do with Margate (gulp). Yes, they must attempt to 'zjuj' up the tatty seaside town of Margate in Kent with a poster and leaflet campaign which will be pitched to some marketing pros and the people of Margate themselves.

Yasmina quickly takes on the challenge of PMing for Ignite. As the brain-storming begins, Lorraine’s instinct starts emitting, like a giant beacon on her head, seeking out the wrongs and rights, the tat from the gems. She senses that the family market is indeed the demographic they need to target. I could shoot Margaret for making that Cassandra comparison – don’t be surprised if Lorraine stops combing her hair, starts wearing a toga and spouts about the end of the world being nigh. What’s worse is that after a couple of lucky strikes, the team are loathed to deny Lorraine’s instinct: like an unwelcome gatecrasher at a party that cheeses everyone off and drinks all the booze, it has become the fifth member of Ignite. Suffice to say, they all go with the family market.

Over on Empire, there is a battle of wills: Debra versus Howard. When I say ‘wills’ I mean Debra’s granite, beat-you-into-submission will, versus Howard’s flimsy piece of balsa wood. I actually think I heard his spine dissolve. They settle on a ‘compromise’ – Debra’s mighty marble face rules, while Howard (who I now think looks like a blow fish) will lead the creative team, but under Debra, of course.

James, who has increasingly begun to look like Mr Punch, has an idea. He thinks that The Gays spend lots of money, loaded they are. The pink pound is the way to go. Mona’s pretty face crinkles up. Kentish people would not like it, she says. Gay gets the vote and the team is split up: Mona playing Judy to James’ Mr Punch and Debra and Howard leading the creative side of things.

Over on Ignite, Ben, Lorraine and her instinct are in fine fettle: Ben appears to have found his new vocation and does that poncey finger-framing thing, not realising that he looks like a yuppie going through some kind of mid-life crisis, rather than a Hollywood director. They also attempt to come up with some straplines for the campaign: Ben’s Roger Moore-esque 'Shellabrate Family Fun', makes me hoot out loud while Lorraine’s 'See Margate through Children's Eyes' sounds like the title for a seventies slasher flick. But The Force is strong today and the team go with it.

In London, Yasmina and Kate are getting men to strip for them in an attempt to find the perfect family for their poster campaign and Debra and Howard are seeking straight men to play gay men.
My prize for best comedy moment this week has to go to Mona who, after discovering that there was a Gay Pride march in Margate last year and Kentish folk are actually very broad-minded about the possibility of a Brighton-style make-over, meets a pre-op transsexual with “real boobs” and her whole world turns on its head.

At their fake club, the location for a photo shoot, James and Mona try and get the models to look gay and attempt a musical statues approach – dance music embarrassingly provided courtesy of James’ spittle. It looks like the world’s most boring party.

Photos done, it’s now down to the creative teams to do their thing. Yasmina is peeved that despite explicit instructions to leave space for text in the images (?) there is none while Lorraine’s instinct is stirring up trouble again: 'a poster is for a holiday is a vision, not a product, and you can't touch it' she says loftily. Yasmina looks fit to kill.

Over in Team Margay, Debra’s time management skills leave a lot to be desired. With more white space than the Arctic, the leaflet is pants, while the poster looks like something drummed up by a year seven art class. Ignite do a better job, apart from the absence of any children’s eyes anywhere in the campaign.

Off to the pitches and Ignite quickly get shot down by the pros. The accusation is blandness, too much blue and the aforementioned lack of kiddie peepers – Lorraine says that blue is the theme. The instinct is uncharacteristically quiet. Howard pitches well for Margay and the pros applaud their attempt to genuinely rebrand Margate, if wasn’t for those pesky posters, they might have gotten away with it. What’s more, the unfinished leaflet is bringing the marketing experts out in hives. Howard’s limp explanation that it will be offered as advertising space for local businesses only seems to make things worse.

When it comes to pitching to the locals, for the first time, I can see that Kate actually possesses more than ropey hair extensions and a generous mouthful of pearly whites. Her pitching skills are really good and she presents confidently to the Margatians, still they seem unimpressed. Margay however ticks more boxes and would be a winner if the posters weren’t quite so rubbish. One fellow thinks that it is too narrow a market. Mona and he exchange sympathetic glances.

The day of reckoning arrives and Sir Alan squares up for a fight. He seems impressed by Margay but this week however, how the teams performed is not up to him. The scores are in: Ignite get 7/10 from the pros and the Margatians, while Empire bomb with a paltry 4/10. Suralan sends the winners off to drive fast, polluty cars while Debra decides to bring in James and Mona.

Surprisingly, Nick and Margaret gang up on Mona, telling Suralan that she lacks ideas and has no opinions of her own while Debra has cloth ears and her steely resolve means she is inflexible, and James, they say, is a buffoon. Actually, they didn’t, but he is.

Sir A is ready to point the finger of doom. I pray that it’s adieu to Debra and her crummy posters but
I feel Sir A is a bit lost this week - I mean given the choice, I would fire all three: Debra is never going to win, James needs to go and find the crocodile who stole the sausages and Mona doesn’t have it in her survive in the crazy corporate world of e-m@ilers and Amstrads.

The finger falls, with regret, on Mona, Suralan quips about her being at the end of the pier and James releases a tear of relief (and a bit of wee?) I can’t believe Debra survived those diabolical posters. Still, Sir A has his plan, no doubt.

Next week is one of the exhibition tasks, and the trailer shows much struggling with pushchairs as the teams go selling at The Baby Show. Will Lorraine’s instinct become ever-more powerful, we shall have to wait and see.