Overconfidence is deadly: For the second season in a row, a team of male candidates felt they had an inherent advantage over a team of females in designing a promotional campaign for a high performance car. This season as before, the men got their clocks cleaned by the women on the opposing team. The men repeatedly guaranteed that they would win the task, but their campaign just did not stir the emotions.

George, who watched the teams in action during the task, felt that the men of Excel were too cocky and that their arrogance was a major factor in their defeat. In truth, it was not the only factor, because Excel made several mistakes in executing the campaign, but the attitude of superiority among the team members certainly didn't help.

In addition, there's something a bit sexist about an assumption that men are somehow more qualified to promote a sports car than women are. One would think that biases like this one would have been discarded a long, long time ago.

The bottom line: Any good coach of an athletic team tries to get the players to take opponents seriously and to avoid underestimating them. That advice applies to the world of business as well.
 

Emotional products demand emotional promotional themes: A Lamborghini is not a vehicle that provides basic transportation. Therefore, there's not a purely practical reason to own one. Instead, the motivation for owning a Lamborghini is emotional, perhaps even illogical. The promotion of a product like a Lamborghini needs to reflect the emotions that the product sparks in the mind and heart of the consumer.

Last season, when designing a promotion for the new Pontiac Solstice, the winning team interviewed consumers, asking how they felt when they first saw the vehicle. The project manager then incorporated these ideas into the promotional materials.

Chris started out well in planning the Lamborghini campaign. He cautioned his teammates against having preconceived notions prior to the initial meeting with the client. But Chris didn't close the loop by talking to customers and asking, "What do you think and feel when you see a Lamborghini?" At the very least, Chris and his colleagues could have even taken the car for a spin, described their own emotions and put them in the campaign. Unfortunately, they didn't.

The bottom line: For a product like a Lamborghini, if the advertising and promotional themes are not felt by the audience and need to be explained, the promotion is ineffective. It is absolutely essential to discover the hot buttons among the consumers in the target audience and push them – hard - with the campaign's message and materials.
 

Endangered species list

The following people are on this week's endangered species list, based upon the likelihood that they will incur Trump's wrath in the near future:
 

Markus (Excel): It's only a matter of time before Markus is fired. He's a loose cannon who lacks the sense to know when to keep quiet. He is also very quick to turn on the rest of his team in order to elevate himself. Markus had some sound precautionary comments to make about certain features of Excel's print campaign. In the end, it turned out that his assessments were correct. However, he was not taken seriously by his team because he had already alienated everyone after the first task. He was also inept when he tried to help with the production of the video commercial for Lamborghini.
 

Kristi (Capital Edge): She's the only one on her team who has been a losing project manager, but that didn't stop her from complaining continuously about Marshawn's performance as project manager. Kristi was the only member of her team who did not vote in favor of giving Marshawn an exemption from being fired next week. If Kristi continues on her current path, her teammates will soon tire of her shrillness, and so will Trump.
 

Mark (Excel): He was very cocky in his predictions of a victory for Excel. However, as the person in charge of the print campaign, he made at least two critical errors that the judges noted. He was lucky that Chris did not make him attend the firing session, because he bore a lot of the responsibility for Excel's unsuccessful campaign.

Gold Stars:

There are no gold stars for this week's episode.