Vincent's ad was far better and Glenns team should have lost with either Edna or Helen being fired. What has Edna done since she was PM and I don't know what Helen is about.

I thought it absolutely disgraceful the way Sugar attacked Jim and Vincent as if they had done something disastrous.

(Jim and) Vincent had done something disastrous. They went against veterinary advice and steam rolled ahead with Jim's idea. Vince's flattery of Jim was the downfall for both of them.

It was quite clear from You're Fire interview that Vincent said another vet told them she fed all her dogs with the same food. But why didn't we see that in the main show? Because the editors wants to make them look like they went against the 'experts' advice, in order not to make Sugar appear to have a hidden agenda to get rid of whomever he wanted, which is Jim clearly.

Their advert was worse, as was their attempt at a pitch.

Hold on there. The only advice the vet could give was about the name and I don't think marketing is his area of expertise .
The marketing experts could not choose a winner so Jim should be praised for coming forward at least with an idea instead of the rest of the sheep like Edna and Helen who are content to say nothing and escape any criticism.

Vincent's ad was better, but his campaign was worse. He basically said his dog food was for dogs. Well, duh. That it was "every dog" doesn't add anything. He didn't have a strong, clear message. The other team did. If you think your cat is overweight, buy this cat food. The sort of idiots who feed their cat so many between-meals treats that the cat gets overweight, would fall for it.

They are probably those idiots who would NOT get the pun intended for the catcize and see their light rubbish and then when they entered the Tesco they'll forget to buy it and went to buy more pork pies for themselves (and the cats).

Jim had a fair point which was that he just came up with a name during a brainstorming session. The entire concept wasn't his, it was Vincent's. However he does now come across as a bit sneaky and ironically the way Vincent looked up to him has harmed his own image, as it has created suspicion in LS, Nick and Karen.

They made a meal of the name thing, IMHO.

Given that neither team was likely to come up with a marketing idea that was world-shattering, it seems to me Lord Sugar should have concentrated more on the process of team management once the decision had been taken, rather than one perceived error in the concept. On that basis the wrong team won. In any event (and others will no doubt prove me wrong) until relatively recently, most dog food was just "dog food" - generic - it appealed to a wide variety of dogs. For dog owners with more than one breed and a range of ages a good general dog food would be a good value for money proposition rather than being different tins all the time. So I don't accept its a terrible error of judgment.

As I've said elsewhere, I'm pretty sure that the fuss Sugar made about the name was a deliberate trap for Jim.

Sugar wanted to see whether he had the sense to realise that it was a minor mistake given that the strategy wasn't his and thus admit to the mistake and play it down.

Instead he tried to weasel out of taking responsibility for the name (in contrast with his almost rabid determination to take full credit before he realised that they had failed), and that has made him look very, very, bad.

I also think that its made it very clear to Sugar that Jim is having an undue influence on the others - whether deliberately or not. Of course, whether Sugar sees that as a plus point or a minus point is another matter.

I think Catsize was actually a really good name and the packaging was excellent too.
Ok so the advert wasn't as good but Catsize is a product that could actually sell and have a niche.
If you wanted to do it properly then you'd use an animated advert and get the cat's eyes link in there but obviously they were stuck with just using actors and voiceovers.
Glen is a complete jackass but he did produce a good result and he did it basically with a team of 3 as well.

Whilst in comparison "Everydog" is just a terrible concept. May as well have called it Tesco's own dogfood. They made their product look cheap which is hardly a good starting point for a job with Alan Sugar.

Actually every dog takes the product even further in the wrong direction by emphasising every dog is the same. if you want to offer a generic dog food, you may have to make the point that its so good that all dogs wil love it. Not sure a big can would be right either - you are basically saying buy this for your tiny dog, open this, and keep on feeding it to him till its empty - even when its getting smelly.

The cat food hd a different problem because I doubt if there was any evidence for the claim that any food can make your cat smaller. Giving your cat less would make your cat smaller, or filling it up with something that was proved to be lower in calories would make it smaller, but just saying A produces smaller cats than anything else would see you in court - possibly quicker than claiming your tin was for every dog.

Lord Sugar asked Glenn to explain the idea, and then said he didn't understand and would watch the advert. And then he said, "OK, I've got it. So your whole scheme is about healthier cats, cats not getting too fat." Now for Sugar, for an advert, that's pretty high praise. He understood it from the advert.

In the past we've usually had at least one team produce an advert that fails to get the message across, leaving him uncertain what the product is or what it will do for him. This year, both teams got it right. The other advert might have been more polished, but this is the one where he made a point of shutting Glenn down and learning the campaign from the ad.


How the team is managed is mainly down to the PM. The other candidates should be allowed to make a difference too.

The PM set the direction, but I think the entire team contributed to developing the campaign. The packaging was good, the advert got the message across (see above), and the pitch although not polished also explained the campaign in a way the experts could understand. So the right team won because they had the better campaign.

Are people forgetting that Vincent's adv also put a strong emphasis on healthy dogs when it said full of Omega's for healthy heart and limbs . The two dogs in the adv absolutely devoured it in no time so it must have tasted good also.

As I said in another thread I was disappointed there was no mention of pricing, because nutritious, animal food comes at a cost.

I honestly don't know how the catsize thing won- it was dreadful.

I thought during the show that everydog was a poor name, but having thought about it more, I reckon it'd be a great name for a 'smartprice' range- 'a quality food that will suit any dog at a price you can afford'- that kind of thing.

Yes, it was mentioned, but didn't come across strongly in the branding. "Every Dog" doesn't say hearts and limbs to me.

Apparently Vincent had a three tier strategy: "Every-X" being a brand that would cover all pets, then "Every-Dog" would just cover dogs, and within that "Every-Dog Hearts" would just cover the particular dog-food they developed on the task. Not a bad idea, but a bit too much going on to fit into what they had to produce.

Like I said in a similar thread, I couldn't disagree more. I work in advertising and that kind of attitude really peeves me off. Advertising is about a hell of a lot more than the flashy sexy creative side of making a pretty advert and a delivering a snazzy presentation.

It's about what you're saying, when you're saying it, who you're saying it to and for what cost. And Vincent's team was way off the mark on all counts. The 'every dog' concept and idea of targeting 'everybody' showed a complete lack of target, focus and strategy, and therefore his campaign was fundementally flawed.

I was so glad LS highlighted all these things and made the right decision, and after years of being annoyed by the advertising tasks in each series it actually restored a little bit of my faith in the show.

LS can get rid of who he wants to, its an interview process and its his cash at the end of the day.

I wouldnt leave Jim alone with a bag of crisps.

Funnily enough, I don't disagree with the above about Lord Sugar.

What I object was Vincent's mentioning that there were one (or even two) 'experts' who said they fed their dogs with the same food that wasn't reflected AT ALL in the main show. Now why is that?

I think you've completely missed the point here OP.

All of these types of tasks are about Original Ideas with a great deal of emphasis placed on the product or service the team creates and who the product or service is marketed at.

That's the important part of the task, in the same way that selling the treatments was more important than selling the products the previous week because the profit margins were higher.

The only time the advert really comes into play is if the ideas of both teams are roughly on the same level and, as we've seen in previous series the "ad people" like to see lots of shots of the product in question plastered all over the screen.

Regardless of what you think about Glenn's advert the ad people had told Lord Sugar that his team had identified a market, developed a product and packaged it. It could (they said) go straight on sale.

In contrast all Vincent's team seem to have done is run with this "Every Dog" name, shoved some dog food in a can, and stuck some cheap looking labels on it.

There was, as far as we know, nothing different about their particular brand of dog food to mark it out from any others on the market. They hadn't indetified any market beyond "everyone" and the packaging looked as if it had been created by some kids at primary school.

Without a doubt their advert was better but Lord Sugar obviously decided it was quicker to reshoot a crap advert than it was to come up with a new product concept, do some research, identifty a target market and sort out the branding / packaging etc.

In essence Vincent's team made the opposite mistake to the one the boys team made on the Apps Task.

Then, the Boys team created the "local vocal" app which sold well initially but they it was targetted mainly towards the UK rather than the world which is why the Girls team got more sales.

On this task Lord Sugar was looking for a new product to be launched into the pet food market.

What unique selling point do you think Every Dog had? What would make any consumer go out and purchase that product in preference to all the other dog foods on the market?

And what do you think Lord Sugar is looking for in his business partner? Someone who can direct a nice looking advert or someone who can identify new gaps in the market and develop product ideas to fill those gaps?

The point is that the target market was dog owners, and many dog owners treat their dog as a member of their family, so will choose the best quality food for them, not a cheap looking tin named "Everydog"... which essentially suggests "Any old dog" as Karen pointed out.

Catsize was a far better concept and in terms of the brand and packaging was head and shoulders above Everydog, and although Everydog had a better ad and pitch, the concept and brand was what won it. Don't think Lord Sugar made a mistake at all.

I think your theory is flawed, if they were trying to hide it, they would have also editted out Vince's reference to it.
They cant show everything, They showed LS saying you were told its a no no, Vince says 'yeah but we also found people who said it was ok"
Whats wrong with that?
LS sacked them because everydog was a crap idea, no innovation, as innovation was the task.
I bet he couldnt wait to sack Vince and I'm sure he wants to sack Jim too, and who can blame him.
I wouldnt be surprised if we dont keep Jim until the interviews, in fact I hope we do.

I laughed at that.

Both ad campaigns had serious flaws but Glenn's was totally confusing and did not give any clear message as to why his particular food is better then any other.

Lets face it the only difference between any animal food is the ingredients and if your pet likes it and for most people cost.

The marketing people for the first time in the Apprentice could not decide on a winner. So to have Sugar castigate Vincent and his team like he did was disgraceful behaviour on his part. He is a nasty man . How dare he speak to people the way he does for trying their best.

I wish LS had just fired Jim when he was about to head back to the house.

He lead the team to disaster and should have paid for it.

The way he spoke to Natasha at the end "You did just as good a job as me" was a nonsense.

Glad his card is marked, he's irritated me from the start.