The Apprentice Better2Know Challenge

At Better2Know, we do enjoy BBC’s The Apprentice, and have enjoyed the challenges and the unique personalities of so many of the would be apprentices. In particular we like the challenges where the teams gets to choose products from various inventors to try to sell. This is always an interesting one, as you do wonder whether the inventors will always get good publicity from this if the teams present their product inadequately – or in poor German – how does that affect their product image?

However, putting these concerns aside, we have wondered how we can use the enthusiasm of The Apprentices to help promote the idea of STD testing through Better2Know (just in case Lord Sugar comes knocking on the door looking for an idea – always best to be prepared). It’s not a straight forward sell, as unlike gourmet street food and expensively fragranced soap there is a much smaller target market, and people do like the anonymity that the Better2Know STD testing service provides. So we actually think it would be an interesting challenge: how do you sell something that people don’t want to be seen buying or even admit to needing. We think this would test the candidates creativity in a new way.

So this week’s Better2Know challenge: the cars will pick the candidates up from their Swanky London Pad which clearly has multiple bedrooms but for some reason they all choose to share: and takes them to Harley Street, the home of the private doctor and where Better2Know has two STD clinics.

This week’s challenge is all about creativity in healthcare. We are in Harley Street, the home of London’s private doctors.We’ve teamed up with the UK’s largest private provider of STD testing services, and you are going to help the good people of London to take control of their sexual health. You are to come up with an advertising strategy using any media you like to increase awareness of sexual health testing, and the winning team will be the one that gets the best Return on their Advertising Investment, and in the losing team someone will get fired.

So this challenge will leave the teams free to consider the best way to get their message across, they will have a budget of £2000 each for advertising, and they will have a day to create whatever they want – flyers, internet advertising, radio adverts, daily press adverts, and then two days to implement and monitor their campaigns to see who can persuade people to have the most STD tests. The interesting challenge will be whether the teams choose to invest all their money, or spend a little and rely on their own personal sales skills.

As a result of this challenge we would know more about the teams approach to creativity and persuasion, but also would have helped people become aware of their Sexual Health and the importance of regular STD testing.