Stat highlighted in The Apprentice highlights value of delivering consistent message over time

There was a considerable amount of attention devoted recently to the value of an episode of BBC-1 programme The Apprentice, which was filmed almost entirely in Jersey - and rightly so.

Yet there was a further message conveyed about Jersey in the episode screened the week before which would have resonated well amongst the business community.

The Jersey episode resulted in excellent promotion for the Island’s tourism industry and showed some of the most beautiful aspects of the Island’s scenery, some of the best features of the town and countryside, together with products unique to the Island’s way of life.

But the previous week when Lord Sugar announced to the contestants that they would be travelling to Jersey for their next challenge, he made the following comment:

‘Jersey may be a small Island but it contributes an impressive £14 billion pounds to the UK economy every year.’

Wow!

For many years the finance industry in Jersey been working hard to convey this message to the UK – that its mixture of banking, fund administration, corporate and private wealth services, makes a direct, identifiable contribution to the UK economy, and is one reason that Whitehall, politicians generally and other influential bodies should support Jersey’s role as an International Finance Centre.

And Jersey has, by and large, been successful in this objective, through the surveys and reports it has commissioned, in drawing attention to this and similar positive statistics, especially in influential finance media read by legal and finance professionals and business leaders across the UK and to potential clients using Jersey for financial services.

But here was the same figure delivered in a mainstream BBC programme reaching a far more wide-ranging audience watching weekday evening television.

It proves that a message you want to deliver can penetrate through to wider audiences if it is consistently delivered over time. The industry in collaboration with Government, has been using such statistics about Jersey’s contribution to national and international economies since they were first included in a report commissioned by Jersey Finance and produced by Capital Economics in 2016.

So full marks to whoever was responsible for providing a briefing about the Island to the makers of The Apprentice programme that they included this telling statistic, which found its way into the script delivered by the famous host and figurehead of the programme