THE INSIDER… Carl Ellis
AN ENNISKILLEN man who is looking for a job in advertising has found himself appearing on a BBC TV programme – thanks to ‘following’ a certain advertising agency on Twitter.
Carl Ellis is one of five candidates starring in a new series called ‘The Insider’ on BBC3, which will be shown next Tuesday night, September 17.
Each week the programme features a different industry including fashion, event management and advertising.
And at the end of each programme one of the five candidates gets their dream job in their chosen field.
Carl Ellis is a former student of Portora leaving the school in 200 before he moved to London where he took a gap year before starting a course in advertising at London College of Communications.
“I started following every advertising agency on Twitter and then one of them tweeted they were doing a TV show” said Carl who said by this stage he had graduated and was actively looking for a job in advertising.
“I contacted the agency and got a call back and was invited to a casting call for a show called ‘The Candidate’.
“All five of us were put into a house – Big Brother style – for two weeks and we were filmed 24/7.
Carl explains each day they had to go into this advertising agency and were given different tasks and different jobs to do each day.
“One day we were working on a campaign for Kit-Kat, next day it was for Britvic having to come up with creative ideas.”
It was only at the end of the filming that it was revealed to Carl and the others that actually one of the five candidates worked for the advertising agency and had been reporting back to his bosses all along, feeding information back to the company CEO.
“We didn’t know this and that’s why they told us the show was called the candidate, and not the real title of ‘the insider’.
“It was pretty intense. We were in the agency all day being asked to come up with ideas. It never really stopped as we were all trying to compete with each other.”
Carl said even when they were chatting in the house at night, or out for a few beers – although they didn’t realise it – they were being watched and everything they said was being noted by the ‘insider’.
“We were really caught off guard when it was revealed that our potential employer had been keeping tabs on us the whole time – even when we were in the pub” said Carl.
The winner of the show, who will be revealed at the end of Monday night’s episode, gets a job with the advertising agency involved – Iris Worldwide.
To find out how Carl does tune into BBC Three on Tuesday September, 17 at 8pm.
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