The Apprentice 2023 – The Final

As we consign this year’s The Apprentice to history, we congratulate Marnie Swindells as Sugar’s new business partner!

It was a closer final than I’d anticipated but ultimately, it felt as though the right candidate won. Even if you put business plans and overall performance aside, Marnie started on the front foot with her team picks…

Yes, playground team picking made its welcome return with the familiar faces of candidates past. I was disappointed not to see Gregory amongst them for him to crowbar in his cannon knowledge again (probably my favourite moment of the whole season) but we did have some of the stronger performers from this year – and Avi and Joe.

Marnie went with fellow combat gym owner Sohail and also ended up with the professional dream team of Megan and Simba. These two had strong chemistry throughout and when on the same team this year, usually won. Rochelle, despite winning the toss to pick first, ended up with Avi.

With their teams set, all they had to do was prepare a brand for their new business and pitch it to Sugar and a room full of their competition. Always an odd one this. Questions from established brands along the lines of “what are you doing that I’m not?” could be paraphrased as “stay in your lane and don’t even think about driving in mine” before feeding back to Sugar that they’re “not offering anything new”. It all seemed a bit pointless but still, this is the game and it was still more apt a challenge than correctly squashing bao bun dough.

Rochelle assigned the job of directing the advert to Dani and then seemed apologetic that she was interfering with Dani’s creative process. The weird thing was, if there was one person on Rochelle’s team that could have been trusted to work alone, it was Dani. She’s a fellow salon owner and understands this industry and its client base. Instead though, she allowed Avi and Joe to work unsupervised on her virtual tour. To give you a flavour of their expertise here, their attempt at ‘feminine’ amounted to a flamingo and a blimp. Remember, Rochelle picked first.

Meanwhile, Marnie split her team perfectly. She let Megan run her advert creation with Simba and Sohail in support while she kept Bradley by her side at all times just in case he wandered off and tried to make a decision. In fairness to Bradders, he perfectly fulfilled his role of silently supporting Marnie as she created her virtual tour like a woman possessed. Even Karren had some praise for Marnie’s focus here. Marnie though was full of praise for Bradley’s input. It seems saying nothing while providing moral support is his forté!

The pitches themselves were fine. We didn’t get to see much of them thanks to the producers giving ample screen time to Simba’s Michael Buffer style introduction of Marnie (I’m not complaining, he nailed it!). There were questions from the room and nods of approval from Sugar. It’s all very courteous in the final isn’t it?

Back in the boardroom and Sugar was in full-on Eric Bantona mode. There were chuckles from Tim, a cracked smile from Karren, a big grin from Tim, plenty of giggling from the candidates and a howls of laughter from Tim. Once the returning candidates had been thanked and dismissed, it was time for the serious stuff. Both finalists had done pretty well. Their billboards and adverts were fairly solid (Marnie’s was slightly better thanks to some last minute rewrites from Megan and some extra emotive acting from Sohail) and their pitches hit their mark. In the end though, there could only be one.

Sugar was concerned about Rochelle’s ambition. She’s been in business for years and doing fairly well but had yet to take the leap into a second store. Marnie’s world of boxing proved too tempting a gamble and he awarded her the win.

Called it!

That’s it from me for another year! Thank you for reading (if indeed you still are). See you in 2024!

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The Apprentice 2023 – Week Eleven – Interviews!

Interview week and it was time for the annual shower of sycophantic giggling, pedantic tantrums and inflated egos on the brink of bursting – and that was just the interviewers! (I’m here all week, folks).

While the interviewers were certainly their mean old selves, missing this time were the cynical edits of candidates firing icy glares at each other (maybe the producers are keeping their powder dry for the final). Instead, we were shown a lovely sense of camaraderie between these five women as they supported each other through their respective four circles of hell.

So who was interviewing this year? Well for starters, Claude was back! He’s been conspicuously absent since week one but he returned to rain fire and brimstone on our plucky young entrepreneurs….only, he didn’t. He didn’t go completely scorched earth anyway. This was a more subdued Littner. Yes, he was as condescending and savage as we’ve come to expect but it seemed as though he’d rounded off the edges a bit. Out of the four, he was probably the softest type of brutal.

Joining him this year was Karren who we now apparently have to constantly refer to as Baroness Brady, lest we feel the wrath of her eye-rolling fury. BB (yeah, I’m abbreviating you, Karren. Come at me!) was in full, well, Karren mode where even passing a sobbing person some tissues could win Olympic gold in competitive passive-aggressiveness.

Third up, Sugar’s old chum Mike Soutar whose superpower remains mansplaining business plans to twenty-something year-old women. He’s written hundreds of them has old Mike! Best in the business! The only thing he loves more than writing business plans is pointing out the grammatical errors in the ones he didn’t write. This was an especially cruel way to kick Victoria while she was down following the savaging she received from Linda Plant.

Speaking of whom, bringing up the rear was Linda. Another stalwart of Sugar’s gallery of professional bullies. Linda was in fine form this year as she turned belittling into an artform. Reassuring former flight attendant Victoria that “airlines will always need stewardesses” managed to upset the person across from her whilst simultaneously pissing off an entire workforce. For a woman that presumably travels often, this may prove interesting when she’s next handed that pre-flight champagne…

Victoria, who didn’t fare particularly well as her online pick-n-mix business was dismissed as doing nothing new in a very saturated market. ‘Nicely presented’ just wasn’t going to cut it and she was swiftly shown the way to the taxi. She won’t be going to the airport though, despite Linda’s venomous barb.

Dani was next to face the doom digit. There were some kind words on the way out around her work-ethic and tenacity but ultimately, her plan for expanding her hair-extension business gave Sugar cause for concern that most of his cash would have been spent on hair. Lots and lots of hair. Her interviews though exposed a vulnerability in Dani’s self-confidence in that she never expected to get on the show, never mind make it to the interviews. In reality, she kind of crushed it!

Lastly, café owner Megan was fired. Sugar agonised for a second before deciding that he’d invested enough already in bakery/café businesses in recent series. Megan was a solid performer throughout and my pick, along with Marnie, for the final. If there’s one candidate you don’t need to worry about what she’ll do next, it’s Megan.

So then, into this year’s final is Marnie and Rochelle! Marnie arguably came out the best in the interviews. Her London-based boxing gym idea appeals to Sugar’s sense of cockney working-class roots and her steely defiance that she knows more about this world than any of the interviewers managed to break through their best efforts to defeat her.

Joining her in the final is Rochelle. I didn’t see this coming to be honest. Her idea of opening up a new branch of her hair salon business in (very) expensive Belgravia was roundly trashed by all the interviewers as pure fantasy. Sugar even pointed out that his £250K wouldn’t touch the sides of this plan….and then gave her a spot in the final anyway. I wish her luck but this does feel like Marnie’s to lose now.

2 remain…

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The Apprentice 2023 – Week Ten

Ah Simba.  The last man standing.  It felt like the lionesses were circling the Lion King™ from the very second that Bradley and Avi were ousted.  The writing was on the wall early this week based on some quietly credible performers among the women and Simba being not nearly ruthless enough.

The final challenge before the interviews involved creating and selling a brand of dog food in what seemed like a thinly-veiled attempt at humiliation by having them make a literal dog’s dinner of their attempt to prove their worth.

Both Victoria and Marnie wanted to lead this week but now we’re down to three per team, it only required a single vote – and Rochelle picked Victoria, meaning Marnie has now tried and failed to be the PM three times in as many weeks.  Rochelle then picked herself to run the kitchen side of things on her own.  It was a very odd power dynamic over at team Apexinity this week.

Over at Affinitex, someone was elected PM and I can’t for the life of me remember who.  I’m going to guess Megan.  Might’ve been Dani.  It definitely wasn’t Simba.  There was also a completely pointless sub-team leader nominated for the branding side of things which seemed to exist solely to point out Simba’s place in the pecking order.  He made zero attempt for either position.  It wasn’t a difficult decision for Sugar this week.

Both teams had oddly similar approaches to their dog food: Market a ‘gourmet’ high-quality product and then flirt with the legally-required amount of meat needed to meet acceptable standards.  Thing is, this wasn’t a profit task.  I don’t think there was a spending restriction so why didn’t they both just fill them up with loads of the good stuff?  The only real difference was in the choice of ‘meat’.  Rochelle went for lamb while Megan opted for mealworms.  Yep, mealworms.  It’s not as crazy as it sounds to be fair.  The pet food industry is beginning to cotton on to the fact that adequate protein can be derived from insects which can be farmed in a cheaper, less environmentally-damaging way and given that dogs aren’t the most discerning of diners, why not go with the worms?  It only adds to the confusion as to why Megan didn’t whack a great load of worms in there and pump up the protein levels to justify the gourmet branding?  Maybe because she tasted it (no, really!) and her human palette decided “that’s enough worms for me, thanks”.

Either way, their respective lamb/worm concoctions were both bulked out with veggies and blitzed to within an inch of their existence.  The focus groups were a lovely montage of dogs ignoring their disgusting smoothies in favour of something that actually resembled food.  I didn’t know a dog could look offended.  Everyone’s learnt something on the journey this year!

For their branding, team Victoria went with ‘Chef Barking’ with a logo that suggested that a stoned beagle was doing the cooking:

He never cooks without his bow-tie

The strapline of ‘designed by dogs, approved by you’ seemed to double-down on the idea of a kitchen full of dogs preparing food for people.  Team Megan/Dani meanwhile went with a confused message of ‘Worms, but not too wormy.  Gourmet, but not really’.  Megan’s initial concept (I’m now remembering that she was actually in charge!) was a vague idea and one without fully committing to any one thing.

Yum

Both teams got absolutely savaged by Waitrose who were evidently not in any mood for shenanigans.  They weren’t at all impressed with the meat content nor the confused branding of either product.  Pets At Home were a little more friendly but despite the warm smiles, they weren’t about to part with considerable cash either.

Back in the boardroom, it was revealed that one of the retailers was prepared to make a sympathy purchase of Chef Barking to give Victoria’s team the win, sending Victoria, Marnie and Rochelle through to the interviews!  Joining them will be Dani and Megan after Simba was punted off Pride Rock by the wisened old monkey – the alternate ending you never knew you needed.

It’s the ciiiiiiirclllle of liiiiife!

5 remain…

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The Apprentice 2023 – Week Nine

Week nine in Sugar’s house of wonder and our ever-dwindling group of dreamers were tasked with creating and marketing a male skincare product.  The brief was simple – create a product and crowbar it into one of the most saturated markets in the world.  It wasn’t made explicitly clear that they weren’t to turn the modern man’s skin green so nothing was off the table.

Bradley came in hot this week to declare himself project manager.  No democracy, no conversation.  He was taking it.  The others put up half a fight but eventually yielded power over to Bradley.  Bold move, Bradders!  Would it pay off though?  He had a clear idea for a product for the 30-40 market: Snakes!  Venomous, bright green snakes.  Now, admittedly, I’m one year outside of his target demographic but I’m fairly confident that men in their 30s aren’t pining for skincare that looks like a 10 year-old’s bubble bath.

This idea (I guess you could call it an idea but brainshit is probably more accurate) came from a snake’s ability to shed its own dead skin – so maybe an exfoliant that does exactly that isn’t the weirdest idea but still, look at it!  It did evoke fun memories of the green and brown shenanigans of yesteryear though…

When will they learn?

Still, a product is more than just its packaging. Maybe the contents could turn things around for Bradley?

Nope

Rochelle and Avi decided to fully commit to Bradley’s request for a bright green ‘venom’ exfoliant.  The result was a luminous slime that would make the opposition green with envy – literally.  This stuff stained the skin so much that I couldn’t decide if Sugar would go with a Shrek or Incredible Hulk joke (he went with both, much to Tim’s delight).  We first learnt this when Avi, contender for this year’s MVP (Most Vapid Professional), stained his own skin and then decided “what else can we do?  Bradley wanted green!” and just went with it.

This was one of those episodes where one team imploded so spectacularly that the other team’s efforts were bland and forgettable by comparison.  Dani stepped up to achieve the easiest win in Apprentice history.  Their idea was a moisturiser for the over 50s (somehow going above my age range – I felt marginalised this week).  The container was a star shape that somehow simultaneously resembled a scented candle and a cupcake.  What it did not look like was a bottle of moisturiser:

The box it came in did some work with its blandness to hide this, even if the tagline was utterly confusing:

*MAN’S

The only thing left was to try and shift some of this stuff to retailers.  Bradley’s big idea was to market his green slime as a ‘double concentrate’ with the customer expected to add a small amount to the big snake bottle and add water.  Fine I guess, but this stuff is already runnier than a one-minute boiled egg.  Water isn’t going to improve things.  Undeterred, Bradley valiantly tried to try to secure some sales by promising to change the product, the packaging and the name but they sold absolutely nothing in an outcome that surprised absolutely no one.

Team Dani fared better since their product didn’t look awful and didn’t turn people green.  They manage to sell over 11,000 units to survive another week, despite some shade being thrown on Simba for selling nothing while Megan crushed it with her numbers.

Alan had seen enough from Bradley.  His PM record reads 0-3 and Sugar now had a green hand.  It was a straight sacking before they’d even started.

Rochelle, Marnie and Avi weren’t off the hook yet though.  Rochelle and Avi had been quick to play the “Bradley asked for green” card but he’d gone now and there was nowhere left to hide.  Marnie skated over thin ice but ultimately, Alan took his chance to pile Avi into the taxi of shame – although not without his now patented “stay in touch” send off, reserved only for those he’s taken a shine to but is ultimately smart enough to not give them any money. 

I’m not sure he stopped talking about his own awesomeness long enough to notice though.

6 remain…

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The Apprentice 2023 – Week Eight

We’re into the business end of things now with eight candidates remaining.  A (probable) double-sacking lies in wait down the road and before you know it, we’re having to deal with those heinous interviewers again.

This week, the challenge was to sell tickets to an ‘immersive event’ which needed to include entertainment and food & drink.  What was interesting this week is that the events were sourced for the teams.  It made me wonder, when one team gets to entertain their guests with a quaint Victorian village, complete with costumes and interesting settings (a school, a mine), does the team left with screaming at people inside a disused prison start at a slight disadvantage?

Oddly enough, no one was in a rush to stop Mark from taking his first shot at PM this week.  He grabbed the prison-flavoured poisoned chalice as the others sat back and let him drink it all down.  It was a different story on the other team as Marnie and Avi competed to lead things.  For the second week running, Marnie lost out here but the passive-aggressive beauty of “I can stand you doing but I don’t think you can stand me doing it” saw her take some dignity points on the way down.

As with all profit tasks, keeping costs down and revenue up was key.  Avi, genius of consumer-psychology that he is, decided to bamboozle the customers into paying £100 by sticking a £99 price tag on the tickets.  They’ll never see it coming, Avi!  Once he was done blowing minds with his pricing wizardry, attention turned to selling these bargains – which amounted to letting Rochelle start before constantly interrupting her with needless waffle.  He then, rather brilliantly, offered Rochelle some notes on her sales technique which was essentially ‘let me interrupt you – the customers won’t know what to do!’  

Meanwhile, Mark’s woes were largely down to having his prices driven down by customers that didn’t understand the experience and so wouldn’t stump up three figures for a prison tour and a magician.  He promised a magician to seal the deal who then held Mark’s feet to the fire over his asking price because he knew he had no room to maneuver.  Adding further pressure to his margins was Megan and Simba’s decision to go for the more expensive food option.  By showtime, team Mark was starting with a deficit.

The experience itself started badly, like really really badly.  The guests did not expect to be shouted at nor forced to change into orange overalls (“I wasn’t told there’d be shouting.  I thought this was a tour.”).  As cringeworthy moments in The Apprentice go, it was right up there.  Credit (I think) due to Megan and Simba for not breaking their prison guard characters, even when one poor woman looked like she was about to cry.  Things seemed to improve as the guests got into it – but then fell off a predictable cliff of misery when it was time to eat.  Mark, forgetting his cooking fiasco on board a yacht in Dubai, was again in the kitchen to prepare the gourmet burgers (The Apprentice, as ever, playing fast and loose with the word ‘gourmet’) but had no idea when to expect his diners, leading to a delay that only a fool wouldn’t have expected.

Over at team Avi, it was the Marnie and Avi show.  Marnie, showing a hidden talent for acting in a range of old-world cockney tones, enjoyed herself immensely as the school ma’am giving Avi the cane and as the mine supervisor telling Avi to get out before he chokes to death.  Bradley and Rochelle meanwhile made some fidget pies for lunch.  ‘Fidget’ being the Victorian word for ‘might be vegan, might be glutton-free, who knows?’  There was a contortionist too, because it’s not a proper Victorian experience without a young woman folding herself into bizarre shapes.

Back in the boardroom and the profits were totaled up.  Both sides managed to record zero refunds (None.  At all.  Not one.  Who were these people?!)  but Avi came out on top thanks to Mark starting the day in the red.  He did somehow make a small profit though so it wasn’t a case of no skill from his team.  Avi looked smug to have chalked up the win but Marnie and Rochelle (and I guess Bradley had an okay week too) got him there.  They definitely won despite his management, not because of it.

Mark, backed by Victoria and Dani, attempted to shift the focus onto Megan and Simba’s decision to go for the more expensive food choice but, as Megan pointed out, even if they’d have gone for the cheaper option, they still would have lost based on the lacklustre ticket sales and overpriced magician.  Sugar agreed and told Megan and Simba to go back to the house, taking the decision out of Mark’s hands.

Mark had nowhere to hide now.  At worst, Dani and Victoria could be accused of shirking but Mark had to take the brunt of this and into the taxi he vanished.

Abracadabra!

9 remain…

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