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e.tv and Stimulii are involved in seemingly highly unethical behaviour regarding contestant selection for the new season of the downright horrible advertiser funded show Tropika Island of Treasure 3 in which one of the chosen contestants - ''selected from the hundreds of thousands of entries submitted either by SMS, MXit or on the Tropika Island of Treasure website'' according to the organizers - just happens to be not only a TV magazine writer, with a celebrity blog, with a radio slot, but also has a family member who have done marketing and promotion work for Tropika and for this exact specific branded show.
The organizers make it to allegedly appear as if Clayton Morar who works at TVPlus magazine has been randomly ''chosen'' as one of the seven seemingly normal contestants out of thousands to take part in the crass product placement heavy, extended brand integration TV show. The shill production aimed at trying to advertise Clover's Tropika brand is more infomercial than so-called ''reality show'' and will be filmed in Phuket from next week which could be an indication of why the specific contestant selection was made: pandering publicity. Even if Clayton Morar really were randomly chosen, he should have been disqualified by e.tv and Stimulii because of a blatant and very obvious conflict of interest when this was discovered. It wasn't done. And the consumer magazine TVPlus - in what way does it compromise its integrity because its reality TV writer who has to cover all reality shows seemingly fairly and objectively is suddenly in one himself?
Tropika Island of Treasure 3 will be broadcast on e.tv from February 2011. It seems to appear in a very distateful way, that e.tv, Clover, Tropika and brand agency Stimulii inserted Clayton Morar into the show hoping for much more free mileage, publicity and exposure for this absolutely terrible tropi-trash production.
This is inherently the danger: When broadcasters like e.tv allow, condone and simply go along with utterly dubious production practices like this, it shows how desperate broadcasters - when they get into bed and allow advertisers funded shows on their schedules, start to lose not only control over productions, but also their own brand integrity.
UPDATE 13:00 Thursday 11 November: Stimulii director Samantha Moon responds as follows on my media enquiry: ''I am unable to speak for e.tv but can speak for the process. A large number of entrants were received. A random amount were selected, these potential contestants were evaluated to ensure that they met our entry requirements as stated in our terms and conditions. From these the 7 final contestants were selected. Mr Morar, and all 6 our other public contestants entered the competition via an accepted means of entry and were selected randomly.''
