Apprentice 7: Think outside the tin, always account for taste and don’t crumble under pressure.

In the task to make a biscuit which would capture a significant share of the £1b sweet tooth market, the key skills were product design and marketing and pitching. That seems to be the only task in The Apprentice but is still fun to observe how people operate in this increasingly narrow range of skills. Anyway Zoe leading Venture made the decision (I think logically), that she would front-up marketing and pitching and sent Tom and Melody to Swansea to do the designing and baking. That’s where it went wrong…

Helen sent big plausible Jim into the biscuit factory and she did the marketing n' pitching with NIN, as she shall be known from now on. Since a porn themed biscuit was out of the question they decide to target the kiddie market with a biscuit which was part sugary flapjack and part massive chocolate reward star. I can see parents everywhere saying “ooh not very healthy”, but then “well it’ll shut them up for a while.”  –like . Anyway Helen was so efficient and polished a tribute to capable PA’s who work close to the pulse of the business. Her team was able to corner Asda’s biscuit Aisle with an £800,000 order.

Lord Sugar was like a child on e-numbered treats as he restrained himself from doing a profit dance round the room. Big Jim had over promised on the marketing front.  I think he just missed out branding the “special stars” on the side of the next space launch, but he might as well have done. Anyway Asda buyers bought it and Jim showed shrewdness in knowing that The Apprentice is at the end of the day, a game show and if you act as though you were constrained by a normal biscuit marketing budget, you’d be accused of being half baked.

Anyway no lack of ambition from Melody, so in love with her own idea of a heart shaped biscuit for Valentine’s Day that she revealed her inner child. When Zoe pushed ahead with the decision to go with Bix-mix, melody rolled her eyes and pouted “but I don’t like that”. She related it again as Zoe eyes rolled on overdrive. “But I don’t like that”. I wonder if this toddler refrain is usually answered with “well what Princess Melody wants, Princess Melody gets”.

In the end Tom played the mad biscuit boffin and has begun to irritate me. Not saying boo to Melody all the way through he was prepared to integrate her heart shaped concept into his two biscuits in one thingy. The taste consequence as conveyed by a toothless old shopper was “a bit dry that”. But in the end in the boardroom it was a battle between two Boadicea’s. I thought Zoe was unfairly fired and that Lord S has stars in his eyes for Melody because “she’s a bladdy good seller”. The fact that he criticised Zoe for not being at the production phase and let Tom and Melody off the hook, was just plain wrong. His decisions have got increasingly perplexing. Both Nick and Karen were quite clear that Melody was playing the old guy like a Stradivarius but he was adamant. Tom could easily have gone for failing to get into his capacious brain that “£1.99” means expensive silky smooth chocolate not a re-engineered digestive.

But in the end Zoe went because she couldn’t be everywhere at once and she trusted one straight but naive person and one calculating non- team player to deliver. She also crumbled a bit when the pressure of Melody’s targeted undermining got to her and she tried to define the bixmix as a market limiting “girlie night-in” product. Result zilch orders. But at the end of the day it was the taste test that did it. So, it was taxi for Zoe, (which incidentally is a biscuit from my dim and distant childhood.) Now there’s an ideal retro biscuits in the original wrapper. 

Liked
Helens surefooted approach and her ability to bring people, into the team and Zoe’s no prisoners approach with manipulative Mel.

Loathed
Susan’s increasing ability to hide when the action is going on and add zilch to tasks.

Perplexed by
Tom - one of  the more numerate and savvy ones not knowing that a £1.99 biscuit is £1.99 for a reason.

Disturbing
Natasha’s commandeering a supermarket tannoy system and saying “come on kids and get a biscuit”.

Didn’t quite get
Hard-faced buyer’s who confuse the idea of looking implacably miserable with being business-like. Lighten up folks!