Unless I missed something, no one who'd come back from the focus groups relayed any information to the 'design team' regarding colours so he was correct in saying he was unaware that red and black was a bad idea. Otherwise, surely Laura would have said something when they were sat with the designers? I remember her not being happy with the sunglassed-woman with on it.

Honestly believe had the colour been more apt, they may have beaten the other team.

From the show it looked like the other team (Chris, Sandessh and Stu), didnt really talk to alex or laura before they did the bottle. But it was edited so we dotn know what happened.

They could of forgot to tell them, or didnt tell him to get him fired?

Think you're right. When we saw them going into the focus groups, they had their blinkers on and were completely tunnel-visioned as their main intent was to push the name Germinator. As someone else said, Stu and Chris were so wrapped up in their roles as voice-over & Spielberg respectively, they lost sight of feeding back any other useful info they may have gleaned.

Sandeesh seemed to be indicating they had told Alex, but he said not. We didn't see them tell him, but that doesn't mean they didn't.

In any case, surely Alex could have known for himself that the bottle colour was awful. Even my dad said the minute he saw it that the colour was wrong.

But then again Laura said they didnt tell them, however chris also said that they told them, so we dont know. They could off told them, and they jdut didnt show it telling them to maybe try and stich up Sandessh, Chris and stu.

Does it matter? I cant believe people cant see that was Alex grasping at straws.

He went to the supermarket and did market research with Laura. The colour scheme was there for him to see. Did he really need colour scheme info from the control group too? He even commented at the supermarket he wanted to "make it stand out" It was his idea to change the design, so trying to blame Sandessh who wasnt at the bloody designers and for not tellling him looked even more pathetic. They had phones, did they not. If he was so bothered, he could have easily phoned them! Besides Sandessh wasnt the only one at the control group! If he wanted to go down that pathetic "colour of the bottle" route, he should have brought Stuart back. At least Sandeesh gave a good pitch. Lord Sugar saw straight through what he was trying to do, bring in who he considered Lord Sugar to have a problem with.

It was disgusting to see him trying to take credit for that too. Saying he wrote it. It was only earlier he commented on Laura harrassing Sandeesh "when you were writing your pitch" He completely lied, he never wrote it at all. Alex did nothing. Aside from making a complete mess of the bottle and being walked all over.

Alex's problem is he will never learn from any mistakes because he's never prepared to admit when he makes them I'm glad he's gone, cant really believe he was on the show.

He was in The Mirror yesterday, saying he was too creative for Lord Sugar! He's absolutely clueless!

correct, it looked like Drain Cleaner.

They did discuss the colour at one point and didn't Alex say he wanted it to look like that because it would grab people's attention for being different or something?

Of course it matters - why the hell do you think companies spend so much on market research? The whole point of holding focus groups is to incorporate end user feedback into product design.

No one's claiming Alex didn't make errors himself but not even the most experienced marketing guru can claim to know the best way to design a product unless they've heard from prospective users. Alex was not in the group who was charged with that task and we have no way of knowing whether those who were relayed that piece of info...

Yep, Alex & Laura the marketing experts decided that it was a good idea to make the product stand out by making it look like a drain unblocker / engine cleaner.

It was totally ridiculous to try and blame this on Sandeesh when it was Alex & Laura who did the market research in the supermarket.

My "does it matter" was in reference to Alex blaming this on Sandeesh. He never critised the other 2 at the focus group, for this just who he precieved as the one more likely to go home in the BR. Chris was critised for the advert, and Stuart who did next to nothing wasnt critised at all. He was grasping at straw with Sandeesh, and everyone knew it. She was the only member who recieved positive feedback. Bringing Stuart in the BR, he may have had a chance at staying by stating Stuart did the least.

Given Alex's background he would known how important the focus groups feedback is, so if he was never given that info why didnt he ring them or ask them what was said? If he told the truth and those at the focus never told him, the fact Alex never had the initiative to get that info off them speaks volumes! Besides he did his own market research and made the mistake of ignoring the obvious. He made a conscious decision to "make it stand out" by going with the colour scheme he did. And if Lord Sugar and the Advertisers liked it, he would have taken the credit for it. As it happens, they hated it so he looked for a scapegoat for his mistake! Useless!

Wow, you don't like Alex do you? I'm not defending him I'm trying to get to the bottom of a missing link.

We're speculating but my point was given half the team was sent out on a focus group task, pretty sure there was some kind of debrief and I have a feeling the bottle colour info was never communicated back...by omission on the part of those who went...? We saw them having a conversation.

And I stress again, no one knows everything about how to design and market a product which is why focus group data is critical. Any data the other group gleaned would normally override anything he and Laura gleaned by looking at rows of cleaning products in the supermaket as they didn't actually speak to shoppers, did they?

As useless as you think Alex may be, I don't think even he would be prepared to commit hari kari by ignoring that data.

One doesnt need market research for a product one uses oneself. I am not sure even what the research told them. That a woman needs more than one pair of hands! They seem to manage very well though with just the one. What they should have done is copy all the labels of the existing products, not start with influenza. And change the colours a bit. It seems to me a very simple task. As for the name, it doesnt have to mean anything, what does Persil mean, and it still washes whiter! Both ads could have been much improved.

We just don't know the facts. If we'd seen Sandeesh and her sub-group delvering this information, we'd know Alex was wrong. But not having seen it doesn't prove it didn't happen; we all know we don't see everything that happens.

From the boardroom footage, LS says to Alex that the research done in the supermarket should have told them to go with softer, pastelly colours. Stuart then pipes up to say that the focus group feedback was the same, and Laura is nodding her head in agreement with Stuart as he says this, and Sandeesh also agrees verbally.

Then the dispute follows, Alex accuses Sandeesh of not feeding the info back, and gets Laura to back him up. Laura then does a full 180 and agrees with Alex that the info was not fed back to them.

Reading between the lines, I would think that Alex has at some point whilst they were working together on the task, told Laura that he will not bring her back to the boardroom, if she supports him as PM in the boardroom in Alex's attempt to get rid of Sandeesh.

So we can conclude from that that either Laura has a problem with her neck, as LS so eloquently put it, or she is a bare faced liar!

Yes it's always abundantly clear the best way to design any product featured on The Apprentice.

In hindsight.

Yes, that's how I remember it - thank you for the clarity. IMO Alex was never going to bring Laura back into the boardroom as he was simply terrified of her.

Or both!

I didn't pick up on that. It's not conclusive, but that would back up Sandeesh.

To sweet FA
One doesnt need hindsight to copy a product on the market which one uses oneself. As I wrote, look at what everyone else writes on their product and just copy it! This new product wasnt supposed to do anything extra only better. Looking at the alex-epstien site of how he can come up with 'answers' makes we wonder who would believe him. If he would have made a good showing in the tasks, he really would not need LS to employ him. He would have made enough publicity. I would now advise him before its not too late, since people may still be looking at his site, to get a real professional there like the badger. That would make his fortune.