Young Apprentice – Week Five Appraisal

On to Week Five of the Young Apprentice and, finally, something to get the candidates a bit more excited.

Wembley Stadium was the location for the announcement of the task, as a pre-recorded message from Lord Sugar was relayed through the stadium’s big screens.

Puns were coming by the bucket load as the candidates were informed they would be ‘working up a sweat’ over creating and branding a new deodorant, to be aimed at their own target market, teenagers. The winner would be the team that impressed an advertising agency the most with their concept, TV advert and pitch.

Zara and Harry M were assigned as team leaders for Atomic and Kinetic respectively ahead of the intriguing challenge.

Team Kinetic

Immediately Harry M decided that in the role of team leader he would be decisive and direct, choosing to aim the deodorant at females, leaving no room for manoeuvre for the other three team members. However, Lizzie’s idea to call the brand ‘Vanity’ was more to Harry’s liking.

The girls, Lizzie and Gbemi, were tasked with designing the packaging, but things went far from smoothly. Amid much heated debate and less-than-constructive criticism, an old-fashioned yet elegant design was 'agreed upon' (although Sugar sidekick and new Countdown host Nick Hewer wasn’t so impressed!)

For their advert, the lads were all for humour, settling on a storyline showing the deodorant give a ‘geeky’ girl the confidence to come out of her shell and attract male admirers in a fashionable underground club.

The pitch, delivered by Lizzie, was fairly impressive and the advertisers were pleased with the advert, but was the packaging up-to-scratch and the overall concept to Lord Sugar’s liking?

Team Atomic

Zara also acted quickly in choosing to target males with their deodorant, although coming up with an overall concept proved harder, as market research revealed their initial idea of creating an all-encompassing deodorant for all occasions might not prove successful. They changed tact and decided that adding a hint of after shave and marketing the product for use in the daytime would appeal.

Their brand name ‘Raw’ was brought to life in the TV advert by a break dancer, who was shown to use the deodorant before performing a strenuous and impressive dance.

Packaging-wise, Atomic went for a modern look containing clear and crisp sans-serif orange text which contrasted sharply with its silver-grey background.

Harry H then delivered a cracking pitch for the team, before thoughts began to turn to whether they’d done enough to pip Kinetic and win Lord Sugar’s approval.

Packaging problems

After last week’s back-slapping of team leaders, things could not have been more different in week five.

Both Zara and Harry were blamed for various failures in the task, as Harry was derided for his lack of team ethic and leadership whilst Zara was accused by Lizzie of completely ignoring her various suggestions.

Lord Sugar was really happy with both adverts but less impressed with Kinetic’s packaging, therefore giving him reason to crown team Atomic as this week’s champions.

Gbemi, having designed the packaging, was shown the door, as Atomic won its first challenge of the series.

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