Ogilvy’s “World’s Greatest Salesperson Contest” inspired a reality show

OgilvyOne’s Search for the World’s Greatest Salesperson contest inspired a new reality show, as it was announced at Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival by OgilvyOne Worldwide and OgilvyEntertainment, in collaboration with Generate and MSN, according to a press release.

The half-hour, episodic broadband series developed by OgilvyEntertainment and Generate will take the form of a “makeover” show that will celebrate the “salesperson” inside all of us. The series will be distributed on MSN and will include “how-to” information and other supporting content on the subject of selling. Casting for the series will be conducted through video submissions from consumers who will talk about their current sales positions and why they want to become better salespeople.

The idea for the series came from the success of OgilvyOne’s multi-platform “World’s Greatest Salesperson” contest that generated over 230 submissions on YouTube from 12 countries, more than 100,000 visits to the YouTube brand channel, 90,000 video views.

The show will break down the sales process with revealing and entertaining real-life stories that go behind the scenes of a cold-call sales pitch. Viewers then see how a “pitch doctor” would improve the presentation, and finally, the show will take the viewer through an actual real-life sales call.

The show will be executive produced by OgilvyEntertainment, produced by Generate, a leading content development company, and shown on MSN.com.