While the spotlight was firmly on The Block winners Brad and Lara at last night's grand finale auction, in which their house sold for $1.62 million, one bidder tried to steal the limelight with an awkward publicity stunt (watch above).
IT entrepreneur Danny Wallis and his blonde posse of two wore "Energy Watch" t-shirts, promoting the online company he bought in May after it had gone into liquidation.
Wallis, cannily trying to get attention for his newly named "Energy Watch International" on the first day of the carbon tax, entered a series of peculiar bids at the auction, narrowly out-bidding the other million-dollar offers using loose change.
After ample screen time, the businessman bought Mike and Andrew's house for the exact price of $1,400,001.01. Makes cents, doesn't it?
Fans of The Block took to Twitter to have a go at the shameless promo.
"The chances of anyone in Australia using Energy Watch from this day forward are ZERO ... and 91 cents," one user wrote.
"The new owner of #energywatch buys a million dollar house while the old #energywatch owes creditors nearly $9 million. Seems fair," another wrote, referring to previous CEO Ben Polis' legal troubles with the failed business.
Earlier this year, Polis was sacked for posting offensive comments about Aborigines, Asians, women and Prime Minister Julia Gillard on Facebook.
Energy Watch was quickly dumped as a sports sponsor and media advertiser, going into administration in May.
In better news to come out of The Block finale, all four couples sold their homes, taking home a record total of $1.84 million in prize money all up.
More than 45,000 people inspected the three-bedroom South Melbourne property that took Brad Cranfield and girlfriend Lara Welham 11 weeks of gruelling hard work.
The Block won last night's ratings with 2.715 million Australians tuning in for the winners' announcement.
See what the winning couple had to say about their Block victory after the auction:
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