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Movies & TV, The Apprentice

Teflon Simon

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Mark Frith on The Apprentice: You’re Fired summed up the result of last night’s episode of the Apprentice pretty well:

“I’ve never, in any series of the Apprentice seen anyone fail so completely and utterly as Simon did tonight, and not get fired.â€?

The basic task was simple. Sir Alan had lined up an hour in prime time for each team with shopping channel Ideal World. Each team split into a single and a pair and selected two products for the other part of the team to sell live on air whilst the others were in the gallery producing, and the winner was the team that produced the most cash. As always they had a wide variety of products to choose from ranging from low value high volume to high value low volume items, although Sir Alan explicitly advised against gambling on a high value item to get through the task. He also mixed up the teams again, swapping Lohit and Naomi. The project managers for the task were the only two candidates to have been on the same team all the way through, Kristina for Stealth and Simon for Eclipse.

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Neither team can really walk away from the task feeling proud – Ideal World quite literally lost thousands of pounds over the two hours, with both teams bringing in barely a tenth of the sales that the channel would usually expect. More than that their appearance actually produced complaints from the viewers of the channel! If anything it proved that selling on TV is a lot more difficult than one might expect. Both teams had an eclectic mix of products, and exhibited various levels of ineffectiveness over the selling ranging from just appearing generally uncomfortable, through unintentional comedy in product demonstrations through to Kristina who in the process of struggling with demonstrating a mop actually swore live on air. Ultimately though it was Simon and Eclipse who sold least, and it was Simon, Tre and Naomi who ended up in the boardroom facing Sir Alan.

It is worth going over quite what a mess of the task Simon actually made. Like Kristina he decided to select himself as the single, and pair up the other two team members. Whilst that put Naomi who was by far the strongest presenter of the three with Tre who for once admitted that he wasn’t good at something, it was a significant mistake when it came to guiding his team members from the gallery as they tried to sell the items he had selected, as he dried totally. Indeed on the live show the professional producer from Ideal World was looking significantly concerned at his lack of interaction.

However his lack of interaction paled into insignificance against the product choices. Naomi and Tre selected some pads to allow craft fans to easily produce decoupage, and an exercise trampoline, whilst Simon ignored the advice of Sir Alan and picked a hair-removal kit, and a luxury folding wheelchair. When the time came around to present the items, Naomi and Tre seemed to have tried to make the best of the choices they had been given and understand their products. Simon however seemed to be trying to wing it. A staff member at the channel expressed concern that Simon had made no effort to understand what decoupage actually was, and had done about the same amount of work to understand the trampoline – and it showed. Simon failed to sell any trampolines at all, and the decoupage pads didn’t do much better. Naomi and Tre did slightly better, even managing to sell two of the wheelchairs, netting more than half of their final total.

On that basis, it seemed pretty clear who was going to go.

Simon had explicitly ignored Sir Alan and gambled on a high value item, he had been hopeless as a producer, and failed to sell when on screen – alongside that he provided some unintentional laughs whilst demonstrating the trampoline – you can watch the trampoline selling for yourself below… (and watch out for a classic Tre moment in there too.)

On the other hand Naomi and Tre had, despite the products Simon had landed them with managed to sell two expensive wheelchairs, and brought in the bulk of the money on the task.

Also against Simon was the fact that throughout all the previous weeks he had never been in the board room which usually means that the candidates aren’t adept at defending themselves, plus the fact that he was project manager of the whole sorry affair. When he walked in, you could see from his face that he expected to go – he knew he had messed up.

However that wasn’t the way it went. When criticised over selecting the wheelchair, Simon countered that he thought that there would be housebound people watching who would be interested in the product. Whilst due to it’s high cost it wasn’t exactly an impulse buy, two people had bought. Sir Alan seemed to give Simon credit for this, but no credit at all to Naomi and Tre who had managed the sale. When it came to the fact that Simon had failed to sell any trampolines, or many of the decoupage pads it wasn’t down to Simon – Naomi and Tre were to blame there too for poor product choice. When it came down to the firing, Simon didn’t even figure, it was Tre for moaning too much, and Naomi for her poor product choice and unimpressive performance previously. Tre seemed to narrowly escape, resulting in Naomi getting the boot.

I didn’t agree, neither did any of the panel, nor most of the audience on the Apprentice: You’re Fired – it was an amazing decision. I guess ultimately it comes down to the fact that by this point Sir Alan is very much picking based on the ultimate job he has for the winner, but still it was incredible that Simon survived.

Next week though, comes the interviews, where the remaining five are reduced to the final two. Often it is this round that throws up the biggest changes, with someone who has done comparatively well up to now heading out the door – Paul last year being a prime example. In terms of who will get through, despite her faux pas this week, I think Kristina has a good chance. I still think that Lohit and the way he quietly and efficiently gets on with things is great, but he may well be too quiet to get through. The mauling that Tre got this week seems to make him an outside bet, however the survival of Simon certainly implies that Sir Alan thinks a lot of his abilities. That just leaves Katie. The problem with her is that she is very two-faced. Yet again we had a fired candidate this week who regarded her as a friend, until she saw footage of Katie comparing her to a golden labrador…

Movies & TV, The Apprentice

Katie’s Gamble Pays Off

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Over this series of the Apprentice there have been only two tasks where the loosing project manager has survived the boardroom. Coupled with the fact that over the past three weeks Stealth have lost the task, and their project manager, and in two of those tasks the project manager had been a survivor of the board room who had begged for a chance to be project manager to prove themselves, things were looking bad for Katie.

Up against her was Eclipse being led by Tre, who on paper was by far the stronger candidate. Tre had been on the winning team the same number of times that Katie had lost.

However, despite the apparent indications of previous performance, the result was exactly the opposite. Katie and stealth were victorious, and it was Tre who ended up in the boardroom.

So what went wrong – or should that be what went right? The task this week was to sell products to the trade. The key thing that the teams were told was that the task was about cold calling and making appointments with retailers – this wasn’t about just selling to people on the street.

In the case of Stealth, the bad run of recent weeks has cleared out a number of the people who were sources of friction, leaving just Katie, Kristina and Naomi. Whilst there are tense relationships amongst the three of them, especially between Katie and Kristina, they seem to have grasped that you need to put those issues to one side, and as a result they came up with a good strategy and it paid off. Whilst they didn’t get any advanced appointments, after a solid block of work on the phones they made appointments with possible retailers, and managed to sell all their products.

Looking at Eclipse, the story was very different. Over the past few weeks the source of friction – Tre has been kept largely in check. The other candidates seem to have got a handle on how to manage him. His only previous attempt at being project manager, way back in week 3 was marked by a team not really under control, and as I noted then it was more a competition as to who made the biggest hash of it. Here, up against a well organised and motivated Stealth, and without one of the others keeping him in line the disorganisation of Tre really came out. Whilst they managed to get one appointment arranged in advance (one more than Stealth of course) they didn’t follow this up with more cold calling, and pretty soon took to wandering the streets and visiting shops without appointments. Simon had managed to get a list of possible retailers which he had handed to Lohit, but it transpired many of them were incorrect anyway. The whole task was an absolute mess from start to finish.

When it came to the boardroom, Tre was hammered by Sir Alan. He then makes a pretty brave decision, and opts to leave Simon out, taking in Lohit and Jadine who together had made the biggest sale of the day. In the final boardroom it as always came down to strategy. Jadine, much like Ifti had a bad case of homesickness during the task, and really didn’t defend herself well. Tre as always fought his corner. Lohit, much as he has done on his previous visit to the boardroom got quite heavily hammered by Sir Alan of not having the ‘killer instinct’.

However, much like the treatment of Syed in series 2, Sir Alan gave Tre another chance. Although Sir Alan seems to have a real problem with the fact that Lohit is relatively quiet and well spoken, he survived too, with Sir Alan saying that he was still a possible winner. Ultimately it was Jadine and her bad day that were shown the door.

It was however one of the most apologetic firings of the series. Sir Alan explained that this time he was looking for someone with experience, and that he felt that Jadine still had too much to learn. However after firing her he congratulated her on getting so far, and said that he couldn’t say anything negative about her. He told her to go home to her daughter and wished her good luck.

Once she’d gone though, he again told Tre how lucky he had been – will he go the same way as Syed? Tre and Lohit seem to be two extremes, on the one hand Lohit comes over as quiet and efficient, whereas Tre spends much of his time talking about how much better he is than everybody else, and then when he is put in charge just blows it totally. As in the past Sir Alan does seem to be willing to give the loud candidates the benefit of the doubt, but ultimately when it comes to the crunch, doesn’t go with them – putting aside Ruth Badger in favour of Michelle last year, and Saira Khan in favour of Tim in series 1. On that basis, and with only a couple of weeks of the series left, I’m pretty sure that Tre won’t win. Despite her win tonight I think Katie’s card is marked too. There is definitely a very flirtatious level of sparring between her an Sir Alan, which whilst it is entertaining, certainly isn’t the basis of a business relationship. Lohit does seem to be unpopular with Sir Alan, so perhaps isn’t the right fit, whilst all thought that Simon who has never faced the boardroom had a lucky escape this week. In the past, candidates who have avoided visits to the boardroom in the early stages have often slipped up when ultimately they do face Sir Alan.

However it can all change next week, in what looks like it will be another entertaining episode. The teams try their hand at hosting some TV shopping, and from the clips so far look to make a catalogue of errors. Will we be seeing a whole load of potential media careers go up in smoke?

Movies & TV, The Apprentice

Apprentice Deja Vu

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It was a definite case of deja vu on the Apprentice this week. In a repeat from Adam last week, we had Ghazal, one of the boardroom survivors who had begged to be project manager in order to prove themselves getting her wish, and again the gamble not paying off. To be fair, this was the advertising task, which thanks to the very limited time-scales involved is always notoriously difficult and unrealistic.

Effectively you have a few hours from cold to come up with a product, and then in two days have to produce a billboard advert and a TV advertisement. The product this year was a trainer – for which the teams had to come up with a brand and associated campaign.

Neither team did overly well – unfortunately the team difficulties came into play and yet again, Stealth lost as they effectively divided into two, and in another deja vu moment the fired candidate, who this time around had been relying on Katie throughout the task, admitted that she saw her in a whole new light having seen all of the rest of the footage in the programmes.

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The most entertaining part of the episode was probably the Tre/Simon double act. The team had come up with a ‘reclaim the street’ concept for their campaign, which aimed to tie in to street culture. Unfortunately the limited choice of actors for the advert couldn’t provide the requisite dance skills. Luckily Cambridge graduate Simon proved to be multi-talented – well maybe it would be fairer to say that he was willing to try his hand at anything. He wrote and recorded the rap for the advert, and then volunteered to do the dancing. However through all of it Tre, who had come up with the concept got increasingly frustrated at the quality of the rap, and the lack of good dancers, leading to a number of amusing Tre-isms to camera.

Katie continued to dominate the other team. As a Global Brand Consultant this seemed like an ideal task for Katie, but despite her presence, and also with Naomi having relevant experience, the team failed to come up with a decent concept. Kristina and Naomi got increasingly frustrated, making a pretty obvious split with Katie and Ghazal. Unfortunately that left Katie running the team by proxy, to the extent that Katie later persuaded Ghazal to change the concept mere minutes before the other two team members headed off to film the advert and take the pictures. Despite producing a good looking advert and poster shot, it couldn’t make up for the lack of concept, which was quickly spotted by both Alan Sugar and the advertising agency.

Katie again was called into the boardroom but largely sat back whilst the other two, Naomi and Ghazal argued. Sugar however picked her up on this, at which point amazingly she seemed to be trying to flirt her way out of trouble – not that it got her very far – Sugar pointed out that she’d been on the loosing side six times out of eight, and what a lousy record this was. Interestingly after protesting for a while, she then tried the ‘give me a chance, make me project leader’ gamble that has been tried by Adam and Ghazal in the previous two weeks. Will it be the same outcome? We’ll have to wait and see…

As to potential winners, I’m not sure. Katie certainly seems to have annoyed Sir Alan enough that she won’t make it. Tre is probably too much of a hot-head too, even if he does survive longer. Naomi and Kristina are possibilities, and Simon seems universally popular amongst his fellow candidates and able to turn his hand to almost anything along with it. I have to say that Lohit is probably still my favourite, not least because he just quietly gets on with things – you can read more about his time on the show on his website. But then what do I know – Sugar very much follows his own path with his choices, so it may well still be a total surprise who he picks in a few weeks time.