The Apprentice – Week 6 and Week 7

The Apprentice Week 6

Geoknow the Relationship Guru? If you put them together it sounds like a lazy northerner asking a question. (I can say that because I’m northern).

This week’s task was to create a brand new board game, with a view to selling to independent shops but also pitches to two major retailers. The pressure was on.

Interestingly, James took the big job of PM for Summit. Interesting mainly because I was dying to see him fail. Anyway, their concept was created by a very strong candidate, Roisin. Called Geoknow, it combined elements of well-loved games such as Pictionary, Charades and Articulate, in a fun geography package. Of course it would have helped if the project manager would have actually known how to play the game – “Hi I’m from America” was his clue for…America. Excellent knowledge of the basic concept of the game there, James. However, the biggest blunder was Bianca’s very foolish decision, offering exclusivity in the borough of Westminster for 6 games. They then had to tell the buyers at Waterstones that they couldn’t put the game in their flagship and biggest store. She also had a run in with PM James, resulting in “leave the room, leave the room then, but I’m not finished” – now that is the level of maturity that Lord Sugar is after.

(source: telegraph.co.uk)

PM for Tenacity was Pamela, a candidate I had previously thought to be a front runner in the process. Their initial concept surrounded relationships, because there are no other relationship games out in the market according to Mark…are we forgetting one of the best-selling adult games, Mr and Mrs? Pamela made the “executive, decisive decision” to go with ‘The Relationship Guru’ against all feedback from the market research. Firstly, any member of that team putting themselves up to be the relationship guru is laughable. Secondly, the real chokehold is that out of everyone, they chose Daniel. On the surface, that seems like a reasonable decision as he does run his own Pub Quiz company. But, the questions were genuinely worrying, as in I worry about his intellect and just general life skills. “Men think women should…iron, smile more, or always be happy?” I would actually like to know which one he put, because any of the options lead to me to want to bludgeon my own skull. The feedback given by potential customers was “If someone got this out at a party, I’d probably leave.”

I don’t think it will come as a shock that Summit and Geoknow won. The boardroom became quite heated for Mark and Lauren who both took some heat for not putting themselves forward to project managing the task. But, Mark was given a warning and sent back to the house, with Pamela choosing to bring back Lauren for her ‘lack of contribution’ and (obviously) Daniel.

In some ways I am sorry to say that Pamela was fired because I do think she had some good qualities for business, but she didn’t listen to the market research, created a quite frankly a GCSE IT standard looking game, and then tried to defend herself by going for Lauren, when an obvious target was Daniel. So actually, it appears that I’m not that sorry to say it, bye Pamela.

The Apprentice Week 7

Week 7 saw the candidates go to New York…well, some of them. The news that teams had to be split and half would stay in the UK caused scenes with people throwing around their qualifications, and general facts about themselves, “I’ve been to New York”, well done Lauren. Their task was to create, brand and advertise their own soft drink. Yes, it’s the advert task.

Tenacity was managed by Mark, they decided to go with a health drink, leaving Katie and Daniel behind in the UK to create the drink and brand it; and Mark, Lauren, and Felipe to go to the US, create the advert and pitch. In all honesty, I am unsure how sound a decision that was – Mark is hands down the best pitcher, but Felipe the only candidate who is ‘not a salesman’ and Lauren with a voice like a scratched chalkboard, best choices? No. The name of the health drink? ‘Aqua fusion.’ Dull and forgettable, just like the flavour. The branding appeared to be shocking, putting yellow on yellow so the name was lost, and no actual trace of it being a health drink anywhere on the bottle. I would have assumed that when making a health drink, you would want to advertise its benefits, but apparently all you need is a picture of some fruit. The advert, whilst better, gave us the extremely cringey moment of “thanks mooooom.”

(source: telegraph.co.uk)

Team Summit had Bianca at its helm, leading the way with an energy drink, entitled ‘Big Dawg’ by candidate James. Although it seems quite wacky, for an American consumer into the big and bold, this was perfect. While Roisin and Sanjay stayed behind to create the flavour and brand; Bianca, James and Solomon flew to the US to do…what exactly? Oh that’s right, criticize the other sub team on every single thing they did. They were dissatisfied with the taste, their suggestions for names and their branding. For the afore-mentioned consumer that likes big and bold, the US team chose to have no music in the advert and show a series of unexplained people (who all actually did have a relevance) saying how much they like their energy drink.

Big Dawg was the alpha in the boardroom and they took the victory, with ‘Aqua Fusion’s’ lack lustre name and branding coming under attack. Mark as PM said to Daniel that they would go with whatever they wanted, which to me does seem ridiculous given their previous experiences and rivalries. He brought Lauren and Daniel back into the boardroom, claiming again that Lauren hadn’t contributed. I have to disagree, throughout the process I believe that she has been a strong sub team leader and shown some very good attributes, that Daniel has not. However, Daniel puts up a good fight in the boardroom, showing a passion that Lord Sugar seems to be unable to ignore. So, Lauren Riley was fired, although I do believe she was better than quite a few candidates left.