A subtle hint as to the theme of the task
They're going to the US embassy in Grosvenor Square. Cue much
pseudo-american music and gratuitous shots of Abraham Lincoln and Barack
Obama. Lord Siralan can't be bothered to turn up this week, but he's
sent a video instead, which makes him look like Oz the Great and
Powerful with his giant head floating in mid-air. The teams will be
inventing, branding and advertising a new soft drink for the American
market. This bit gets emphasised, so it's clearly important. Half the
team will stay behind the handle the drink and the branding and the
other half will go to New York to film and advert and pitch to some
advertising execs.
So only half the Apprenti get to go to New York. This is in no way designed to cause conflict.
After last week's criticism, both Lauren and Mark are keen to be project manager of Team Tenacity. Lauren thinks she would be ideal because she has worked in New York and has extensive local knowledge. Mark, however, claims advertising is essentially his day job. Nick Hewer points out that he is actually the Sales Manager of a Marketing firm and has no creative role. But given the task is about dramatically exaggerating the value of a mediocre product, he's probably gotten off to a good start.
Bianca is project manager of Team Summit and, again, we have no idea how they decided this. I'm now having visions an elaborate ritual conducted in a dark cellar, with hooded and masked figures, occult symbols drawn in blood and candles sticking out of skulls. Bianca has decided to take James and Solomon with her to New York. Or James has decided to take himself. Bianca comments that she'll have "four days of this". Then why take him? Maybe she's hoping to leave him in America? Sanjay is not at all happy to be left behind and makes his feelings clear. This is as animated as we've seen him all series. Get over it Sanjay, it's really just a big dirty city. Eat a subway sandwich in a public toilet while listening to a car alarm going off and it's pretty much the same experience.
Sanjay, ecstatic to be left in London
Sanjay is not the only one unhappy to be left behind. Daniel thinks he should be going so he can do the pitch. Given his last pitch involved criticising his own product and saying he would never use it, I think that's best avoided. He is somewhat placated by being put in charge of branding. He hopes to show Lord Siralan his creative side. He gets started by suggesting the name "Love Water". At this point the blog is broken. There is nothing I can possibly write that can out do the name itself.
Honestly BBC this could be anywhere, you need to make your establishing shots more specific
The sub-teams go to experiment with drink flavours. But, who cares? The others are in New York, where James is excited by how straight the roads are. I think road-straightness is pretty far down on the list of things New York is famous for. The teams have arrived just in time to sample their new drinks. Team Tenacity's tastes mostly of pineapple, despite containing raspberry and lychees as well. Mark would prefer a nice tasting pineapple drink than something that tastes horrible. Speaking of which, Team Summit are not enjoying their dragon fruit and passion fruit based energy drink. James criticises the taste based on his extensive experience running a bar. Sanjay blows his top wanting to know why he didn't stay behind if he knows so much about drinks. Roisin points out that he's a fool if he listens to James, a lesson he really should have learned after the coach trip.
The teams test out their drinks on the population of New York, and both take the opportunity to get the ingredients wrong. Felipe manages to mispronounce lychee as leach, while James claims that their drink has dragonfly in it. The New Yorkers seem indifferent to Tenacity's drink, but seem to quite like Summit's, which suggests they are only interested in genuine insects. None of your blood-drinking wanabee slugs here. This could be a slogan, "when only insects will do".
Back in Britain, the sub-teams are working on the branding. Daniel and Katie have come up with a logo in which a pineapple appears to be exploding into a splash of water, which suggests their wasn't much fruit in the pineapple. They also have a yellow logo on a yellow background. The name is Aqua-something. Honestly, I couldn't bring myself to care. Lauren calls up with a brilliant idea for some kind of twisty bottle with fruit rising up out of it. But she doesn't explain herself very well because the sub-team think they've already had that idea. Mark concludes that Lauren is contributing nothing to the task, clearly getting his excuses in early.
Meanwhile, Bianca has come up with the name "Big Dawg" for her team's drink. The sub-team aren't overly impressed, but Bianca reckons its aspirational. Personally, I don't aspire to be an obese dog, but who am I to judge? The sub-team get to work on a bill board advert and suggest the slogan "what dog would you be?" Bianca doesn't like it, largely because it's completely meaningless, which leads to Sanjay complaining about a lack of feedback from the main team. What are you talking about Sanjay, she just said she doesn't like your ideas, what more do you want?
Solomon and James not staring at an actress in a faintly creepy way
The next day, the New York teams are filming adverts, but first they have to take delivery of their newly bottle drinks. Summit are happy with Big Dawg, the name incorporates a bone in place of the i in "Big". Tenacity are less happy. Mark doesn't think the logo is creative, fresh or healthy. Though, to be fair, it's quite difficult to communicate healthiness in an exploding pineapple.
Felipe has been put in charge of directing the advert and wants to prove that he is "super creative" despite the stereotype people have about lawyers being boring. Unfortunately, Felipe's creativity manifests itself in blind panic and lots of running around, especially when it transpires that the actor he cast as a basketball player can't catch to save his life. This almost becomes literally true when is pelted by a basketball thrown by Felipe. Mark is worried that Felipe is overstressed and attempts to reduce his stress by threatening to throw him off the advert and take over. Fortunately, Lauren has been cast in the advert and uses her extensive local knowledge to pronounce the word "Mom" as "Maaaawm".
Bianca is directing team Summit's advert, which stars Solomon, who decides not to attempt an accent. Bianca's direction consists of telling him not to a weird squinty face and draining all the life out of the advert by refusing to let a skater spin his board and taking out the music, because the last thing you want is for your energy drink advert to have any energy.
After a quick editing and website building session, in which Lauren is, once again, not given anything to do, the team's go to see the digital bill boards the sub-teams have set up. Mark claims that it's amazing to be in time square given that he works in advertising. Give it a rest Mark, you're project manager now, no-one cares if you really work in advertising or not. Felipe is surprisingly emotional and even tearful, given that he didn't actually do any work on the branding or billboard design. Maybe he just gets emotional about billboards? Was his father killed by a falling billboard?
Team Summit are happy with their billboard and the new slogan "it's bark is as big as it's bite". James claims that "the world is as big as our oyster". This is actually about the most sensible thing he's said all episode.
The New York sub-teams have to give presentations to an audience of ad-execs and industry types, while the UK sub-teams watch them on a monitor and judge them, letting them experience life as an ordinary viewer. Bianca gives a confident performance and the audience seem to think the brand and slogan fit the US market. Unfortunately, the advert proves to be slightly less interesting than the blank screen it's projected on. When Bianca is asked why she didn't include any music, she claims it's because she wanted to do something different from everyone else. Fair enough, but no-one's made a soft drink advert in which they drop puppies into a blender either, possibly for a good reason. One of the execs asks if the bone-shaped i in 'Big' is supposed to be a phallic symbol. Either he's reaching for criticism, or suffering from an unfortunate medical condition.
Team Summit are on next and Mark seems uncharacteristically nervous. Then Lauren loses her thread and has to resort to note cards, prompting another winge from Daniel about how he should be pitching. To be fair to Lauren, she might have lost her way, but she never claimed that she wouldn't drink the product herself. The audience want to know why the branding didn't make more of the different types of fruit in the drink. Felipe waffles something about not making very specific claims and Mark tries to make a joke about how there are two lawyers on the team which goes down like a cup of cold Aqua-fusion.
Lord Siralan consults the ad execs who tell him that the Big Dawg brand is strong but the advert is poor, while Aqua-fusion had a stronger advert but the brand is trying too hard to be all things to all people. And there was me thinking it was trying to be a drink made from an exploding pineapple.
Back in the boardroom, Lord Siralan emphasises that this task was about making a drink for the American market, so the writing is already on the wall for Team Tenacity. Lord Siralan claims the drink is bland and that Mark delegated the key part of the task.
But there's still plenty of time to criticise Team Summit. Sanjay is still pissed off about being left behind, but Bianca accuses him of whining and says she chose her team for business reasons. Karen says there was no way James wasn't going, though if it came to it, I don't think he'd have clung on to Bianca's leg like a limpet. Lord Siralan thinks there advert is less Big Dawg than chihuahua, but their brand and pitch was better than Tenacity and so they win. But Lord Siralan still has time to be pissed off at James for his stupid remarks. James grins, wrongly believing himself to be a lovable scamp rather than simply an annoying tosser.
Summit are sent off for a meal at the top of a building or something, but have plenty of time to argue over dinner about who actually won the task.
Everyone in this room hates everyone else in this room
Back with Tenacity and there's scandle in the boardroom as it's discovered that Mark's claim to work in advertising is slightly dubious. Lord Siralan claims to to understand what Mark's job is. Given that he works for a company that manages online marketing and Lord Siralan used to run a computer company, I think this says more about Lord Siralan than Mark. Lord Siralan conceeds that their advert was better, but says only marginally and claims they made the "Piers Morgan of drinks". Piers Morgan being one of the many people Lord Siralan has gotten in a twitter spat with over the years. But it was a smart fight as Piers Morgan is one of the few people who is more objectionable than Lord Siralan on every possible level.
Mark launches a well prepared attack on Lauren for not doing anything, but is joined in this by the rest of the team. When Lauren claims she had the idea for a health drink, Katie turns on her, claiming it wasn't her idea alone. Mark brings back Lauren and, "reluctantly" Daniel, because he was most responsible for the branding.
Impressing Lord Siralan with their creativity
Lord Siralan is wondering if Daniel is past his sell by date. But Karen says Lauren's pitch was like a sermon and that Mark's first attempt as Project Manager resulted in a terrible product. Surprisingly, at this point Nick Hewer sticks up for Mark's management style.
Despite Mark's attempt at an olive branch by claiming he was "reluctant" to bring him back, Daniel is having none of it. He seems to be taking it personally, possibly mistaking 'one hundred percent support' for 'will not expect you to be responsible for anything'. In the face of this onslaught, Mark changes his mind and says he should have brought Daniel back "without hesitation". He also claims that if he had a pound for every time Daniel talked rubbish he would already have the £250,000. Daniel reckons he can see through Mark and that he tries to articulate himself well. Mark is so transparent with his actual sales skills and ability to construct a coherent sentence.
Daniel takes it on the chin
In spite of this, Mark still thinks Lauren was responsible for the failure of the task because she didn't contribute. This is a pretty self-defeating argument, if Lauren not being there wouldn't have made any difference she can't exactly be responsible for their failure.
Unfortunately for Lauren, she just isn't interesting enough to stay. He claims Mark made a fatal error, but not the kind of fatal error that results in death as he gets to stay. As does Daniel, who, back at the house, says he is running out of lives. Maybe you should try some Aqua-fusion, apparently it's really healthy.
Next Time: The Royal Bath and West show. I'm pretty sure none of these events exist until the Apprentice comes along. James decides the day is all about him And, apparently, there's a cull in the board room, though the narrator doesn't specify that it's candidates being culled. Maybe Lord Siralan has a badger problem.
No comments:
Post a Comment