First off, I’ve missed a week and need to get caught up so I have a few thoughts on the live TV selling challenge from week nine:
Maura was fired after playing with the limits of what the audio equipment could still pick up without exploding. Her attempt to sell the crappiest tent imaginable was a step too far for Sugar and the nation’s eardrums as she translated ‘enthusiasm’ for ‘volume’. Lots and lots of volume.
Raj swiftly followed after her decision to put herself on screen when Paul had already done the unimaginable for this challenge – sold some stuff in a calm, composed way. He made it look easy when it’s anything but when you have Flo in your ear slashing prices so quickly you’d think the entire economy was collapsing. In fairness to Flo, she did have a partner here in Phil who’s total contribution amounted to “Dunno, it’s your decision”. It was the most brazen shirking of responsibility that we all assumed would see him piled into the taxi but no, Sugar gave him one last shot this week…
Into week ten then and it was do or die for Phil. He was project leader and a loss would have meant a guaranteed firing. He had his team of three until Sugar stacked the chips in his favour by giving him Tre. Tre’s well liked, knows his way around a pitch and was more of an advantage than Phil deserved.
Rachel was left to manage Steve and Foluso in that impossible situation of sending one person alone to either create a vegan cheese or to brand a vegan cheese. Poor Foluso was the one hung out to dry when she was asked to create a name, logo, packaging and advert for one of the most challenging things currently on the market. I’ve tried a fair amount of vegan cheese over the years and, for the most part, it sucks! The brightest minds in this industry can at best, just about make something not completely awful so asking this lot to compete in this market was downright cruel.
Rachel and Steve went off to set the dairy-free world alight with Steve’s curry-flavoured idea. Despite the look of revulsion on his face, he was adamant it tasted good. The point was though, they were trying to make a vegan alternative to a popular product. No one ever asked for curry-flavoured cheddar so why they thought it would rock the vegan world is anyone’s guess. It didn’t help that Foluso went with ‘Big Softie’ as the brand name and made an advert where she mimes some actions to her own voiceover. I can’t go in hard on Foluso though. She had no support and was expected to create magic out of thin air completely alone.
A fully-staffed team Phil saw Phil and Paul concocting truffle cheese with Flo and Tre creating the brand. Paul was in full creep mode this week. When he wasn’t telling Phil how awesome his cheese was, he was slyly planting seeds about how Flo and Tre were phoning in half an effort with their (admittedly half-arsed) brand. The labelling was sparse, pointless and confusing even if their advert was a decently produced effort with Flo jumping into outfit change edits while catching the product and championing its versatility. It was just a pity that the customers being pitched to couldn’t taste any of that premium truffley goodness!
Still, even Sugar was impressed that despite the absence of truffle, they’d made a passable cheese. Tesco agreed and bought a truckload of the stuff, handing Phil his first win! Only took him ten weeks!
Team Rachel booked themselves a trip back for a firing the second Steve went down the curry route. Foluso was fired first based on the lacklustre branding and a name that made consumers think it was an ice cream. This was always on the cards when she was told to work solo. I’d say it was unavoidable but she could have stepped up to lead and didn’t.
We knew a second sacking was coming because it’s the interviews next week and whittling them down to five was inevitable. An impassioned plea from Steve about putting all his eggs in Sugar’s basket wasn’t enough to save him and Rachel’s past performances saw her through to the penultimate week.
5 remain and one of them, inexplicably, is Phil…
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