Just a quick thought: "I'm super, thanks for asking!" kept running through my head through this episode. I'm just saying.

This week the two teams competed to create swimsuits for fashion designer Trina Turk and, quite frankly, I'll never be the same after seeing the results. The teams were given access to materials, designers and such as they were asked to create the swimsuits, with success being measured by how much they sold to retailing buyers at a runway show at the end of the episode.

From the get-go Cary, a gay member of last week's losing team, dominated the design process as he created she shortest of short shorts for men. The designs he sketched out in the van after being given the assignment were so short and tight that the junk of whoever is wearing it is going to be curbside for everyone to see.
Throughout the episode Cary kept insisting that he knew what the Trina Turk brand was all about. He knew their target base and he knew what designs would be popular. This was most interesting to me since it's this sort of "I know in my gut" thinking that so often gets marketers in trouble. It seems like the rest of the team did a good amount of research into price points and such but there was apparently no research into what the brand was all about. The most effective marketing efforts are largely based on research that, while it might not be quantitative, at least makes an effort to sound out the marketplace.

In the end, Cary and his team lost by about a thousand dollars in sales because of the weaknesses of their men's suit options, options that included what can only be described as an itsy-bitsy-teeny-weeny suit created - and ultimately modeled - by Cary himself. The thing was hot pink with swirls and left absolutely nothing to the imagination. I mean the thing showed off wrinkles. It was awful. If this was an example of how well Cary understood the Trina Turk brand than I think Turk needs to look at how her company is being portrayed in the press.

While Cary's suit might have been attractive to a small audience of buyers that was so very much not the point of this task. They were supposed to create some mass-market merchandise, not nicheware. That sort of more focused approach might be good in some respects but not here and that's laregely why he and the team lost and why he was fired.

In short, this is the sort of thinking and execution that destroys brands.

Other random notes:

• One of this season's twists is that the project manager from the winning team gets to sit at Trump's right hand in the boardroom as well as earning the right to continue to be PM as long as their team wins. Right now that's Jennifer and, with her increased access to Trump and the fact that she's basically hogging the PM slot, she's got to be honking off the rest of her team. I see her getting fragged when she goes to the bathroom eventually like an unpopular Captain in the Army.
• We all understand that having the losing team continue to live in tents gives them an inherent disadvantage, right?
  
• How uncomfortable was that trip by the losing team to the Playboy Mansion? The team consisted of one straight guy, one gay guy and a whole bunch of women, who were supposed to be excited to go hot-tubbing with a bunch of Playmates. And Hef looks like he was only awake because someone had applied the paddles just before he walked down the stairs.
  
• How stupid is it that the winning team from this week doesn't have to participate in next week's task? Doesn't that negate the whole point of the show?