The Apprentice Blog

Week 5 out of 12, and the dead wood is gradually clearing. This week, the “rough tough cream-puff” from New York hit the bricks. Having risen without trace, her performances so far have singularly failed to inspire any confidence among her peers, never mind Sir Alan Sugar and the viewing public. Not once have I viewed a “Kimberley Supporters” thread on any of the many, many internet forums (yes everyone else has one).

The Task: Having been given a generic breakfast cereal (a mix of bran flakes, muesli, rice crispies, and floor sweepings), the teams were asked to devise a new brand, packaging, and TV advert, and present to a team of advertising experts. With no monetary target to reach, the winning team would be decided by Sir Alan himself, having been advised by the experts. Much like Rocky in the sandwich task, this seemed a perfect fit for Kimberley Davis, a marketing consultant, who took the role of Project leader for her team Ignite (Phillip, Howard, Lorraine, Noorul and Mona). Empire would be led by “Licensing Development Manager” (what is that?) Kate Walsh. Straightaway, Phillip says helpfully that whilst he’ll do what he’s told, if it doesn’t work out it’s the Project Leader’s responsibility.

At the first brainstorming session, the combination of Ben and James instantly started to analyse the cereal they are eating, and they look at it through the eyes of a child (so no stretch there then). They start throwing around terms like jewels, treasure, adventure, and develop that into pirates, and then to a parrot pirate, who would represent their product named “Treasure Flakes”. Not so much a sharing of ideas with Ignite however, where Phillip, after suggesting a cereal-killer theme, appeared to have a fully formed, and dreadful, idea in mind, including a superhero, and a song for the jingle. In a word, his idea was Pants! In the face of this onslaught, and lacking any original ideas themselves, the rest went along with it, dragging a reluctant Lorraine, who didn’t get any space to float her own feeble proposal. So their product was named very sensibly “Wake Up Call”, but was fronted by a totally unrelated super hero called Pants Man. As they say in Newcastle, it was indeed Pants Man. If the foundations of your branding and marketing don’t make sense, then no amount of jiggery-pokery can paper over the cracks. Because of this, Ignite took ages to make a firm decision. While Kate, Ben and James concentrated on developing their theme further, Debra and Yazz were dispatched to the supermarket to research current cereals in-store. Captain Squawk was a Parrot Pirate, with an eye-patch, wooden leg, and a pirate hat with two crossed wooden spoons. As James explained later, a skull and cross-bones would indicate that the product was poisonous. Again, James comes up with the sea shanty song for Treasure Flakes. James can be creative, when called upon.

Trouble started early with Ignite, when Lorraine, quite rightly, expressed a dislike with Pants Man, and was roundly shot down by Phillip, who was insulted, and the rest of the team, who just wanted Mummy and Daddy to stop arguing. Crucially, having taken so long over everything else, Kimberley literally phoned-in her instructions for the design of the packaging. She must have assumed that the professional designer would have done their job for them, as she was mortified when the box was delivered precisely to her scant specifications. As a professional in this field, this was a serious error, and a dereliction of duty, in my opinion. She even laughed about it! Cue Nick talking to camera, pointing to this very mistake. What can be said about the shooting of the TV adverts, other than James feeling like a monkey with tools, a child actor with nut allergies, and Phillip recording his own jingle. Oh my.

Moving on to the presentations – first up is Treasure Flakes, professionally presented by Debra, who explained the reasoning behind the theme, and how their market research led them to it. The criticisms that were levelled at them were handled extremely well by Kate. Next up was Pants Man and Wake-Up Call, reluctantly delivered by Mona. Kim refused to do this, even though she claims to do this for a living. Mona really isn’t good at presenting. Some searching questions from the experts seemed to leave them flapping a little. Noorul (who ha he?) is relieved to remove the head to reveal that he is really Pants Man. The ridiculous advert is met with much hilarity from the audience, and the lack of any design on the box was seized upon. Also, the fact that there was no correlation between the character and the brand itself was met with confusion. It was pointed out, quite accurately, that they had clearly come up with the idea of the character first, and then tried to work back to the product with it.

The Boardroom: Empire – great branding, name, packaging design and character. Terribly amateur advert. Ignite – Terrible everything, but some nice touches in the advert. Phillip diplomatically lies once again, by being very loyal in public to the PM (good tactics), whilst Lorraine gets her digs in early, that she wasn’t happy with her team (strange tactics). Empire win convincingly, and are sent for some stretching exercises (don’t ask). In the face of this failure, Kim decides to bring back the only two team members she, and we, had noticed, in the form of Phillip, who had the terrible idea, and Lorraine who opposed it. Cunningly, Phillip rounded on Kim for having the bad judgment to bring him back in. Again showing great tactical awareness, he states that he should stay, because he “can actually win this contest, whilst these two have got no chance!” From this point, it was a no-brainer, even though SAS contrived to drag out the suspense. The music started, and we could tell who was getting it. Kimberley, you’re fired!

PS. Regarding Sir Alan’s final line. In the Wizard of Oz, wasn’t it an old man with a grey beard behind the curtain? To quote the same movie – “What did you learn Dorothy?” Well, we learned that market research, collaborative brainstorming, and using your imagination are all vital. Following someone else’s idea, on the basis of their strength of personality, and your own lack of ideas just isn’t good enough. People with strong personalities often get their own way, even when they have a terrible idea. A good manager will ensure that a bad creative proposal is not pursued because of a strong sales pitch.

Tags: 2009, Kimberley, Series 5, The Apprentice

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 23rd, 2009 at 12:11 am and is filed under General, Series 5. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.