The Apprentice: The real winner in the boardroom – How transforming research into a TV show was a real game changer for Jaguar Land Rover

This paper explains how Northstar, a research agency, and Jaguar Land Rover (JLR), the automotive company, used pop culture as an innovative qualitative research methodology and re-imagined how to execute and disseminate target customer insight in the US, UK and Germany.

Introduction

"You're Hired!". Anyone who has ever watched a series of The Apprentice knows that this is the ultimate win for the candidates. It is the hard-earned reward for one of 12 hopefuls who have battled it out for 10 weeks to be Lord Sugar's (or, Donald Trump's) Apprentice.

But look a little closer and you realise this isn't just a highly entertaining TV show, it is the epitome in gamification and projective techniques and also an insightful means of character exploration. Given this, Northstar and Jaguar Land Rover saw its potential to be used as the basis for a...

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