Local Ad Man On 'Celeb Apprentice'

Lake Bluff's Dan Fietsam is accustomed to pitching marketing ideas to high-profile clients. On Sunday, he gets to be the client in a very high-profile venue: NBC's "Celebrity Apprentice." 

Mr. Fietsam is chief creative officer at Energy BBDO in Chicago, an ad agency that provides creative, strategic and marketing services to major brands such as Wrigley, Bayer, Dial, Chicago White Sox, Art Institute of Chicago and the Illinois Lottery. 

One of the Dial brands that he works on is Right Guard, which is the featured "challenge" for this Sunday's "Celeb Apprentice" episode. Mr. Fietsam and Erick Dickens from Dial are charged with giving the two celebrity teams, "Rock Solid" and "Tenacity," an assignment to use NBA legends Clyde Drexler and Scottie Pippen in a Right Guard commercial. They filmed four scenes:

1. Donald Trump, Ivanka, Erick and Dan presenting the assignment to the celebs;
2. Erick and Dan conferring with each "Celebrity Apprentice" team separately to give them more background about Right Guard and what we were looking for in the assignment;
3. the celebrity teams then present the creative to Erick and Dan at the NBA headquarters in downtown Manhattan;
4. the final scene takes place back at Trump Tower where Donald asks Erick and Dan to give him feedback on how we think the teams performed.

Mr. Fietsam isn't sure how much of his contributions will air, but he does know he's not going to get "fired" like our former guv; the show features a different brand and/or assignment every week, and he's just been brought on to handle Right Guard.

And yes, he did get to meet Donald, Ivanka, Scottie and Clyde, as well as all the celeb apprentices. These include Bret Michaels, Bill Goldberg, Michael Johnson and Curtis Stone on "Rock Solid," and Sharon Osbourne, Summer Sanders, Holly Robinson Peete, Maria Kanelis, Cyndi Lauper and Selita Ebanks on "Tenacity." (If you don't know half of these names, or even any of these names, you can check out their bios on the "Celebrity Apprentice" website http://www.nbc.com/the-apprentice/. 

Mr. Fietsam said he had a lot of fun, and it was good exposure for his client Dial ... but he felt incredibly short standing next to Scottie Pippen! 

The show airs from 8 to 10 p.m. (CT) on NBC-Channel 5 on Sunday, April 11. 

Comments

[Brad Andersen]

Interesting. A couple weeks ago a former Lake Bluff resident was also on the show. Leslie Dance was a part of the same show. Leslie lived in Lake Bluff until last year. There must be something in the water here.

[Webgirl]

How fun for Dan and his family! I love that show! They had it right on firing Blago. Who new just how inept he was? That is why all the evidence against him is recorded phone calls and no retrieved email messages. If only the people of Illinois had canned him as quickly... Brad, what was Leslie dance on the how for?