The Apprentice Week 9 Review - Jenna Gets Fired
This week’s task is to raise awareness for British Sparkling Wine, creating a brand identity, website and advert to try and raise the profile of the product so it can compete with the billions of dollars of wine and champagne imported each year.
Good day, my loyal 8 readers. Sadly Week 9 of The Apprentice brings with it a delayed report by me, a gash sustained on my hand whilst I protected the queen from Vietnamese drug lords (or a broken plate, whatever), which contributed to such a delay and a hell of a lot of And on the 8th day, I invented God Stephen. Brace yourselves, it isnt pretty. This weeks task is to raise awareness for British Sparkling Wine, creating a brand identity, website and advert to try and raise the profile of the product so it can compete with the billions of dollars of wine and champagne imported each year. Seems simple enough for a group of up and coming business geniuses, unfortunately for them, but fortunately for the BBC, they dont seem to have any in tow this year. Floppy Haired Nick moves across from 5 man Sterling to even the teams up, he joins Misogynist Adam who classes Phoenixs record of 3 losses in a row as bad, showing to Lord Sugar his attributes of insight to go with his ones of breaking down womens spirit. This switch seems to give Phoenix the advantage, as they now have I have a dream Tom, who is a fine wine investor, and Floppy Haired Nick, who is a website expert and Croaky Jade, whos just there to generally annoy every one. Yet Sterling, who are headed by Snake Hips Ricky this week, are not to be overwhelmed, labelling themselves as the Davids of this situation. I somehow think Lord Sugar may be looking for a more solid strategy than taking the place of a fictional character from a book that bases its premise on the son of God not being built like a house and not having laser blasters for eyes. Onwards and upwards, for some reason there is wine tasting in this task, which is peculiar as they arent selling anything, however it is good excuse for I have a dream Tom and Misogynist Adam to go and get boisterously drunk on camera in the theme of research whilst Floppy Haired Nick covers himself in gold by doing everything with Croaky Jade, who manages to contribute the irritants of her personality to this situation. On Sterling, there is a lot of thought going in to the adverts and web design, making it as accessible and shareable as possible to best achieve their goal of Promoting British wines. Cannon Fodder Jenna and Snake Hips Ricky go to the vineyards to best gauge the tone of their advert, whilst Smiley Gabrielle and On the 8th day, I invented God Stephen think of a logo, brand and website. Stephen has the stroke of genius Grandeur to represent their wine, saying its very British and regal and will best achieve their representation of their British Sparkling Wines...Its a French word. Who CHOOSES these people? The adverts go along very smoothly, Misogynist Adam and Croaky Jade are placed in charge of directing Phoenixs advert with Adam labelling himself the choreographer for an advert which involves 6 people sat down. You may scoff, but he had their toe movements down to an absolute tea. Cannon Fodder Jenna and On the 8th Day I invented God Stephen are directing for Sterling, they decide to go for a humorous angle, as thats what all cultivators of fine wines are looking out for, but manage to succeed in making an advert as funny as a Jason Manford gig in which the chairs are replaced with blades and the back screen is just a slideshow of pictures of German war atrocities. Even Smiley Gabrielles smile wavers, bad things are on the horizon for Sterling... And it proves to be so, even though their pitch to fine wine experts (alcoholics) was better and their website stuck to the brief more than Phoenixs, who focused on sales and made an advert so dull a group of wine experts with the collective age of 187,567 and 3 months look positively exciting, they came undone by their supposedly humorous advert which wasnt in keeping with the tone of the piece. So Sterling lose, and Snake Hips Ricky, On the 8th Day I invented God Stephen and Cannon Fodder Jenna are taken back to the boardroom after it was deemed that taking Smiley Gabrielle would be akin to shooting a puppy. In the boardroom cross fire the advert comes under a lot of criticism, Jenna says it was a risk to take and she took it, which is admirable, but she would have been far better off to ladle the blame to Stephen who spent the time in the boardroom proving what an abomination of a human being he is. Sadly for Jenna, her acceptance of the blame is her undoing and she is fired. Who was fired: Cannon Fodder Jenna Was it the right decision? Her nickname says it all, she was never really there with any real purpose but to be kicked out at some point, although for the sake of my own sanity Stephen should have gone. This weeks valuable business lesson: Checking a word is English will come in handy.