I thought that the boys title 'just a bottle of water' was total runbbish and would be laughed at by the so called experts. I still think its rubbish as was their bottle design. The girls 'drip drop' was not much better but much better then the boys and their design was far superior.

I wish Sugar would have told us how many 'experts' favoured the girls and how many favoured the boys. I just do not believe they all favoured the boys. The girls presentation was superior as Zoe did not refer to any notes.

So it was much like every other Apprentice final then?

Yup the pick of a guy who's actually made a lot of money as opposed to a public vote of a bunch of arm chair business men who then go and work for someone else the next day.

I liked her early on; she's confident and good at sales. That came across in the final when she (and Kirsty) gave the presentation without notes. She seemed to contribute a lot of ideas, too. However, for me their campaign lacked joined up thinking. Selling to teenagers is hard because they don't have a lot of money compared to the 25-35 market. They don't like being told what's cool, either. Promoting the idea that drinking water will give you healthy-looking skin was an interesting idea, but didn't make it into the bottle or the advert. A lot of details seemed to get missed, like not having the stuff the artists needed. The price point was wrong. I feel Zoe's less competent overall than the others.


I thought it amusing that Zoe picked her over Emma. Emma's criticisms still rankled.


I can sympathise with him for ducking out of the camping pitch, because Hannah had put him in a difficult position. I don't agree he stepped back in the cake task. Kirsty and Rhys both had resturant experience so it made sense for one of them to lead. It was Kirsty who stepped back there.

I agree Tim did great in the last two episodes. I believed him when he said he could have done the final on his own. Tim also showed promise early, with his credit crunch lunch and the camping sledge. He worked hard on the cake task.

Where-as Arjun had a pretty poor last two tasks. He was a lousy leader and picked the wrong products on the Holland task, and didn't seem to contribute much to the final. He did speak well in the boardroom, though.

The reason their campaign was the weaker one, for me, was because they chose a product that was new to the UK market (the oxogenated water) and then didn't capitalise on that at all. Whereas the boys had a coherent brand - plain spring water to go with their plain 'a bottle of water' name.

FWIW, I loved the name the boys chose. It was almost humourous in its simplicity, and I'd definitely pick it up in the shop. As a 25 year old, I fit into their target market so I think they chose well!

What madness! "A bottle of water" was commercially viable!

Good point - that's another example of what I meant by "joined up thinking".

Seems to work for the similarly named/styled "this water" which has been on supermarket shelves for a couple of years.

Mind you "Drip Drop" was also a rip off of "Drench" water, the trouble is that "Drip Drop" sounds like something a leaky tap or toilet overflow does, but to be "Drench"ed in water sounds like a good thing on a hot day.

edit: although "this water" doesn't seem to have a water-only product in their range now, just fruit juice mixes, so I'm confused,

Actually, oxygenated water is NOT new to the UK, there's been several brands of it, the problem is it's a nonsense gimmick that most people are too wise to pay extra for, so the brands do not last long.

Some brands mentioned in
http://www.thefactsaboutfitness.com/...tled-water.htm
... you can find more by googling "oxygenated water".

The problem with Simply Water is is that its anything but: its got more sugar in that coke.

The worse thing about DripDrop was it looked like a bottle of engine oil.

You go into a shop and ask for a bottle of water and they would say which one, Volvic, Spa, Evian etc. You say 'A bottle of water'
Its a total rubbish name. The name must have something distinctive about it to distinguish it from all the other bottles of water.
If those were the senior Apprentices it would be laughed at by the so called experts.

I think you will find that most people buy things off the shelves these days and don't have to ask for it! I think the name was a master stroke and a major factor in their winning the task.

Except a quick Director search shows he doesn't run any companies so my assumption that he simply repairs computers here and there for a bit of cash still stands.

Unless of course you can provide proof that he's actually started a legitimate business?

FYI there are several ways to run a legitimate business in this country without being a director.

Of course he's working part time at it. Full time is study and it's paid off handsomely. He's bright!

As always with the apprentice, the final was a waste of time IMHO. It was pointless and I think he had already concluded who he wanted to give the money to and was going to let the team that person was on win the final, regardless of everything else.

I've no idea how he concluded Tim and Arjun won. All of a sudden Zoe and Kirsty's business model if floored, minutes after he informed the other team the 150% margin was utter rubbish? "A bottle of water" is a brand? really? Sounds to me like an recipe for confusion to me. "Ohh Arjun was creative".. and Zoe wasn't? She came up with the lyrics and sang them! And when she tried to make a valid suggestion about colour coding, she was put down by that cow Hannah and told "thanks for your input". She was the bloody co-team leader and she gets spoken to like that? WTF?

Zoe and Kirsty pitched without notes and yet they got nothing for that either? No mention of Tim lazying in a burger bar?

I'd like to see them ditch the final and have the finalist work on their own in the final task. Or at the very least keep all of the finalists in the board room at the end rather than coming up with this silly reasons why Team A was better than Team B.

Yeah but let's be honest here, that is just pure pot luck which one they decided to go with. They just tasted them and picked one. I doubt they think "Oh we'll never sell that oxogenated water concept" when they decided to go with plain spring water. How are they supposed to know any of that? It's just a convenient excuse for Sir Alan to make sure the team he wants the winner to come from wins.

Excellent post. The make up of this final was ridiculous and flawed from the start having 2 leaders on both teams. It should just be just two Apprentices through to the final each leading a team.

To me, which team won made sense. As to who won out of the boys, I think that's an even closer call.

Boys' team: Simple straight forward concept they stuck to and rounded out in every area. There is an increased move towards more simple 'green' brands which give the impression of less marketing than the 'posey' original brands. It's been in cosmetics for awhile (Body Shop) but only in the past few years has it gone mainstream with food. As in organic food, they identified it's source too.

The 150% margin (retail markup) was wrong, as your net costs to produce would be higher due to advertising budget. But if the retailler is expecting to make 25-30% there's enough margin there to do it and possible undercut some existing brands. So their idea still holds together. And it's also strong enough to build other ads upon with the whole idea of stripping back to basics.
It's also strong enough for them to feel confident enough to have answers to questions. It could have worked as a pitch on Dragon's Den.

Girls' Team: Riskier idea as it's a new market. Chances are it's been tried and failed. Maybe they previously tried to make it just 'cool' and forgot that alcohol can feel cooler. That in part is why he thought their business model was flawed. Going for the health benefits as a reason for drinking water was very clever. It's also backed up by research and understood by the public. It should have worked.

However, apart from in the pitch, they totally forgot to make this the reason why teenager should buy theirs over others. In that respect good idea for a health drive, not for a commercial product.
That their pitch was better and more assured doesn't matter as that's not what the public will see.

The name Drip-Drop while a nice name and logo doesn't say drink lots of water does it? You don't drink a drop, you swig a mouthful anyway. Hi-dr8 was naff but could have been worked on. Squeeze, Pure, Clear could be fruitful. Drip-Drop would have been improved though by blue lettering not black. Still can stand out on the shelves if you get the shades right. The advert, while trying to show girls that water is cool, was too obtuse and missed the health point entirely. A before and after type ad would have been better. Or a 'Mars helps you work rest n play' theme.

The boys simply ticked all the important boxes and the girl's didn't. It's like Margate all over again. Bolder original concept let down by the working out of how to say it coherently and that created the mismatch of the pitch, design and adverts. Still better creative work than the shambles the losing adult team managed though.

If by "less competent than the others" you mean less competent than the other finalists, I'd largely agree (except for Kirsty, who I think was less good overall than Zoe).

But I presume you aren't saying she was the least competent of all ten contestants, because I certainly wouldn't agree with that!


I think it was a bit more positive than that; I honestly think Zoe liked Hibah and actively wanted to work with her again.

Plus I'd have to wonder how competitors would react to such a branding strategy. Tim seemed to think they could extend it to any type of product - "a tin of beans", "a packet of washing powder" - but it's like trying to make out that your brand's somehow a "generic". No, I think you have to work a little harder than that.

And if it's such a great idea why has nobody thought of it before? I can't think of any other example of a "stripped-down" brand name - in any market. Other than in supermarket "own brands" and that's different.

It was Arjun who, after a question, suggested it could apply to other things. Other than supermarkets, no company supplies such a wide range of products, so only own brands can go that way. Waitrose already do.

Not all brand ideas can transfer across as completely as say Virgin. Some might describe Virgin as an 'omni-shambles' as they are everywhere (cept 'ere cos this is Bedfordshire ).

As for using just water as a brand:
http://www.just-water.com/
http://www.justwater.co.nz/
http://www.simplywater.je/

Another stripped down brand
http://www.justsoap.com/Order.htm
(they don't do sandalwood for some reason )

There are very many 'stripped' down brands. And they are increasing as many customers would prefer not to have E numbers, etc but ingredients they can recognise. The next step from that is a reaction to not wanting to pay for all the corporate advertising that a big name brand comes with. Simple seems more honest. And it is of course, the latest thing

Indeed they look at you as if you have just asked them not to give you something overpriced with a markup and expect them to fill up a bottle with tap water.........

Well I guess my point is this... what if the girls had ticked all the boxes instead, are we to believe he would have picked a girl to win? I very much doubt that.

He decides the winner prior to the final, so I'm suggesting the final is a waste of time and just there to dress up the series. If the right team wins (the one containing his winner) then all the better but if it's not so clear, he has to make reasons for his winner to be part of the winning team. And that is where I felt the final of junior apprentice was a let down. He appeared to be scraping the barrel for reasons to put one team down over the other. I think the viewers are becoming far too aware of how these shows work to swallow it now. It was the same with The Restaurant.

That is why the final task is never a profit based task.. a real illustration of success, because Sir Alan has to have the flexibility to pick his winner. I'd much rather the final is a big group task featuring just the finalists and then have him pick his winner and at least be up front and honest about it, rather than this "Sorry, your team lost" approach.

I'm also baffled by this "I've been reading your resume" approach he began to take in the board room. I'm sorry, but these kids get to the TV part of the application process, and several tasks in he is making references to their CV? At their age?

At least now we have confirmation, if every we needed it, that Sir Alan hates dominating female sales people. That is why he got rid of Badger, Claire and now Zoe. It's a shame because while Zoe did rub people up the wrong way, she at least worked her arse off to sell and was very good at it. The others resented that and almost reached a point of bullying her by the time the series was finishing. I somehow doubt Sir Alan went out of his way to make sure his rivals in business weren't offended by his actions.

Anyway it's a waste of time ranting about these shows. I still love the apprentice and the restaurant but I fear the concept is becoming a little predictable now.

I'd love to see a show where a group of kids are given a set start up budget and let them go make as much money as possible from that budget. The one who returns to the board room with the most profit wins the series. That would be fun to watch.. let's see who is the real Alan Sugar JNR. Then again, that sort of challenge probably wouldn't make for good TV... but I think it's worth trying.

Just water though suggests pure, not full of chemical additives and people may infer healthy. Just is a positive adjective.

Simply water implies uncorrupted water that hasn't been messed about. Simple probably is positive too.

A bottle of water suggests nothing different or better and the leap to the point that tap would be much cheaper is much closer? There's no adjective working for it at all.

More or less, yes. Certainly there were many other candidates worse than Zoe.

It's hard to compare Kirsty with Zoe because their strengths are so different. Zoe is good at sales and charming people; Kirsty isn't. But Kirsty seemed to be better at other aspects of business. She more or less ran the first day of the cake task, for example, and realised that they should charge more for customised cakes, which Zoe didn't. Kirsty is the one who said they should price the cheese at home, rather than in the chaos of the market. She had good ideas on the camping task, and argued against making the product out of cardboard. She screwed up on the art task, but it's still telling that she was the one that Tim trusted to send out alone. She picked the right products on the Amsterdam task, which was a big part of why they won. Overall, I'd feel more comfortable with Kirsty in charge of a business than Zoe.

Ironically, of the finalists it's Arjun who I might put below Zoe, at least currently. At least Zoe took control and got things done. Arjun did poorly as leader on the Amsterdam task, and seemed to be following Tim's lead in the final.

The series was too short. I feel Emma was more sound than Zoe, and more deserving of a place in the final, but apart from a few incidents (which we've already discussed) there wasn't enough in the show to really back that up. They were always both on the same side.