Week six in Alan’s shenanigans factory and the challenge was to create and brand a breakfast cereal aimed at 6-8 year olds. There was an additional task of making an augmented reality (AR) game to make sure the kids get plenty of that precious screen time while eating their breakfast. What a time to be alive!
Stepping up to lead team Sam this week was Sam. She has kids, albeit younger than the target demographic but still claimed a greater insight than Phil who has already lived through having children aged 6-8. The room was convinced! Their idea was an Arctic theme despite some valid feedback from Flo that it leaves them with the bland palette of light blue, white and not a lot else. While Flo had a point, it turns out that the colour scheme was the least of their issues with blandness…
Meanwhile, Steve was chosen to lead team Steve this week. Not sure about his credentials as a father but he has a nice line in dad-jokes which is like 50% of the job isn’t it? They quickly decided on a superhero theme, despite some protestations of it being an overly-used idea nowadays. Still, ‘Mega Bella’ was created as the inspirational figurehead for their brand. Check out just how mega she is…
Team Sam went route one with their Arctic theme with, yep, a polar bear. Saw that one coming. Absolutely zero inspiration in Sugartown this week with blandness being very much the theme, but more on Phil later. Their box was predictably dull, difficult to read, showed no evidence of actually containing cereal and was stuck with the dreaded white and pale blue. Maura took some flak for giving the bear a crown but it was legitimately the most interesting thing they collectively came up with.
It didn’t get much more interesting on the inside either since someone put Phil in charge of flavours. They were given some basic instructions on flavour-to-cereal ratios but Phil, the guy who owns his own food manufacturing firm, decided to go with an 80% reduction on the prescribed amount of passionfruit. Nice work, Phil. Quick, form an orderly queue for one of his pies!
Team Steve meanwhile had the opposite problem with their ‘Power Hoops’. The focus group of children were overwhelmed with flavour whilst being bored by Mega Bella asking them to collect stuff on screen. At least the polar bear asked them to move their elbows around!
Into the pitches and they were generally unremarkable in terms of content, unless you count Noor’s remarkable abuse of “guys” in her pitch. With all food products, it sells itself based on taste – which is a shame when your cereal doesn’t taste of much and you forgot to make any reference to it being a cereal on the box. It’s astonishing that team Sam managed to sell 7,500 boxes!
Team Steve and Mega Bella fared somewhat better following a giant roll of the dice on an exclusivity deal with one of the customers. One supermarket wanted 200,000 boxes but with a clause that meant no other shop could stock them – instantly alienating everyone else in the room. They didn’t know it at the time but this order alone absolutely hammered Sam’s meagre sales. We later found out that their total sales would have been in the region of 60,000 if they hadn’t agreed exclusivity – so I guess it’s well done Steve!
Sam, after much hesitation which definitely didn’t help her display stellar leadership skills, decided to bring back Phil for the flavour fiasco and Maura for the polar bear. How Phil wasn’t fired for under-flavouring food when it’s literally his day job is anyone’s guess! Sam didn’t exactly shine but probably earned a second shot since Phil’s now on his sixth! Sugar made sure he knew he’d come close but after six losses out of six, the wrong person was shoved into the taxi.
Quick mention for Tim who’s still thoroughly enjoying himself sat to the right of Sugar’s comedy zone! Feels like I’ve neglected him this year.
See what pure joy looks like!
11 remain…
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