Each team had to create the packaging for a new brand nutritional cereal and film a TV advert to sell it (featuring one original character), and pitch it to a panel of advertising execs. Smiley Kate became Project Manager for Empire, with American Kimberly in charge of Ignite.
Empire undoubtedly had the measure of this task from the very start. Sometimes teams just contain the right people, for the right task. They went with a pirate theme, so the cereal became "Treasure Flakes" (with each piece of cereal corresponding to a gem), their character was a peg-legged parrot called Mr. Squawk and the packaging was a fairly decent blue box with artwork on every side.
Poor Ignite floundered immediately. Week Five saw Philip become the figure of ridicule, as he latched onto the immature idea of "Pantsman" as the character to sell cereal, because kids find pants funny. See? It's obvious. He was obsessed with the idea of being random in their approach, as he believes the Dairy Milk ad (with the gorilla drumming to Phil Collins) to be a work of genius. Nobody else in the team liked the idea, and for a few seconds it felt like it would be shot down in flames, but Philip's overbearing enthusiasm won through. So, Pantsman it was -- advertising a cereal inexplicably called Wake Up Call. Not Pantsflakes, then? Kimberly's bad management left them with no time to consult with their graphic artist about packaging, so Ignite were thus lumbered with a vomit-green box with only one side illustrated. Mind you, I think the artist was being a bit cruel in making their title so small –- he must surely have realized that needed to be made prominent.
The filming of the adverts went well for both teams, really. Treasure Flakes lent itself to a more cohesive idea, with a little boy eating gruel suddenly being transported to a treasure chest full of yummy cereal, where a giant parrot sang a sea shanty at him. Ignite's Wake Up Call was a nonsensical kitchen scene, where "Pantsman" arrived to make two kids and their parents dance manically, before reminding them to wear their underpants properly. Pretty poor, but the finished product had a certain zippy, crazy energy that Treasure Flakes didn't quite capture.
The pitch to execs didn't go that brilliantly for anyone. Treasure Flakes was clearly the more logical product, but they were chewed out for not considering their target market. Wake Up Call was roundly drubbed because of an incomplete cereal box, an illogical marketing idea, and Mona's patronizing and confusing pitch ("the slogan we've come up with is 'put your pants on the right way.' Not like a superhero, 'cos he's the only one allowed to get away with it. So basically, when you eat our cereal you won't dress up like Pantsman 'cos you're not Pantsman, only Pantsman gets away with his pants over his clothes...") Riiiight.
In the boardroom, Sir Alan rightly condemned Wake Up All, although Philip still felt the idea had merit, amusingly. Empire were always going to win this one, and so they were given the rather silly reward of a laughter-yoga therapy session. For the losing Ignite, Kimberly brought Philip and Lorraine back into the boardroom to explain themselves. Lorraine fought her corner, claiming she had realized Pantsman was a terrible idea from the start and tried to get them to change their minds. Kimberly claims Lorraine sucked the energy from the room, but agreed that the whole idea had been Philip's. Philip himself just focused on the fact his was the only idea on the table, and rubbished claims that he bulldozed the team into accepting his Pantsman gimmick.
Eventually, Sir Alan decided to fire Kimberly as the project manager, despite the fact a lot of the problems came down to Philip's bad idea. She just shouldn't have agreed to go ahead, and should certainly have focused on getting the packaging completed properly. It didn't help that her job is in advertising, so Sir Alan clearly believed this should have been a walk in the park for her (a la sandwich entrepreneur Rocky with the culinary task a few weeks back.)
Overall, this was one of the better episodes of The Apprentice this year. This task always brings out the budding Spielberg's and aspiring business types rarely show much creative flare. That said, I thought Empire did very well with Treasure Flakes (an idea that's kind of obvious, but wouldn't look out of place on shelves), and Philip made a colossal arse of himself in his blinkered belief that Pantsman would be comedy gold. Considering past tasks, I think Sir Alan was right to let Kimberly go, but Lorraine can't be far behind. Smug Philip had a very bad week that might damage his standing now, but I suspect he's just much more comfortable in the purer sales-based tasks, and wrongly indulged his childish side here.
What do you think? Did Sir Alan fire the right candidate?
22 April 2009
BBC1, 9pm
