Hey everyone, its that time of the week again. This week's episode is Episode 6: Advertising Executives.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMBfQ-cCbgw

I may or may not be able to open the discussion at 9, but I'd rather not commit to it, so is anyone else able to open the discussion at that time?

Enjoy!

Paul didn't exactly cover himself in glory, but he was big enough to admit it. Saira yet again came over very poorly - going her own way but nothing was ever her fault. Her only saving grace was that Rachel was just as ineffective and clearly riled Lord Sid with the daft mood board. I don't know if he heard about the dance, but it really would've been the cherry on her sacking cake if he had!

Just checked back and you'll all be relieved to know that Good Catholic Boy Paul was telling the truth about shaking Saira's hand:
Blink and you miss it!

I think that Paul, Saira and Rachel were all equally bad on this task, but I think that Paul should have gone, firstly as he was PM so has to take more responsibility, and secondly because Saira and Rachel had both been very strong up until that point, whereas Paul had messed up on Tasks 4 and 5. I think that Rachel was right in saying that she was fired less because her performance was any worse, and more because she didn't defend herself as strongly as Paul and Saira, and Sir Alan likes people who defend themselves. In fact, this was probably one of the earliest examples of the 'If you talk, you're more likely to stay' rule (I won't say the earliest, as I think it applied with Miranda and Adenike in Episode 1.)

Interesting that Rachel's dance wasn't brought up in the boardroom at all, isn't it? All of her accusations were based around the mood board.


I don't think Saira was lying, I think she probably just forgot. In any case, what a stupid thing to have an argument about. Alan Sugar's 'I'm Jewish, and I couldn't care less!' was classic though!

Saira was very lucky to stay. That advert was awful. Though Paul's TV advert was hardly any good, and he did not set the overall theme or control the project.

The designers must be under instruction to do a poor job if left to their own devices (as surely they wouldn't want to be on TV producing rubbish). It was funny that it had been torn up and taped back together for the boardroom. Now all that kind of material is not kept by the teams.

My overriding memory of Rachel is the mood board and dance, which is a shame as on this rewatch she had been quite effective in some previous tasks.

Doesn't the JCB1000 look tacky and cheap (Amstrad's trademark). Strange to think how quickly that kind of machine became redundant as MP3 players take over. My teenage daughter think I am mad to buy actual physical CDs.

Well, that was probably the most one-sided advertising task in the show's history. Or at least the most one-sided one which didn't involve Pantsman. Not that First Forte's campaign was a work of genius by any means, but it at least hit all the right notes, whereas Impact's campaign was the sort of stuff you'd expect to see in an A-Level Media Studies class, from the students who are only there to pad out their UCAS points total. Even leaving aside how amateurish the whole thing was, their campaign didn't really tell you anything about the Jukebox, and just made it look like any old CD player.

Either way, it's funny how Raj spent another task standing around doing nothing, yet in doing so actually managed to be the most effective member of his team. Paul was probably the most directly at fault for the way Impact's campaign ended in such absolute failure, though Rachel really dropped the ball on the presentation, and I have absolutely no idea what she thought that mood board was going to achieve. IMO, the two were equally deserving of being fired.

Fun fact: The Jukebox was the only actual product advertised on the show to date, and even then it wasn't released in the UK. Nonetheless, the Beeb kicked up a major s**tstorm with the Apprentice production team over the matter, and future versions of the task have involved the teams creating a complete brand (and sometimes product) from scratch. Compare this with the US Apprentice series, where every task involves somehow advertising a business and/or product.

I did Media Studies for A-level, and I can assure you that I have produced some material that was significantly better than that!


I think that Rachel did the mood board because she and Saira had argued over the advert and Saira had got her own way about that, and Rachel wanted to be seen to be doing something. I think it was a shame to lose Rachel; she had more to give, I think.


I'm sure that they did a travel card that Lord Sugar wanted to launch for AimsAir in Series 2.

Just re-watched it, can see why Rachel was fired, Advertising is meant to be her forte, yet she came up with that stupid mood board, & horrific pitch. The other thing is i don't know if her pitch & dance was mentioned in the boardroom but edited out.

Get the feeling Saira will drive Lord Sugar potty if he chose her as the winner of TA.

Across the series as a whole though? Judging on all six episodes and not just this one, was Rachel right to go?

Rachel would've been a gonna judged on the whole series as Lord Sid loves gobby sales people but ain't so keen on the more HR types.
For me Paul has been either very good or very bad - good on the flowers and he saved the day in the bear costume on Harrods task. He was poor on the art task and clearly got too carried away with being a director this week ( a common failing on this task)
Saira was good on the treasure hunt but has made some big cockups like losing the winning artists last week. She sells well but personally I find her condescending manner and unwillingness to ever admit she's wrong a big no-no.
Rachel has been pretty steady but not exceptional - I'dve probably sacked her out of the three as Paul and Saira look like they could do great things (though also likely to spectacularly fail)
If there had been a "You're Fired" programme I'm sure "The one that got away.." would've been Raj - just seems to be Saira or Pauls 'Yes man'.

I completely disagree that Paul saved the day in the Harrods task. At the start, Impact struggled because he messed up the figures, which set them back quite a long way. Yes, the bear costume gimmick pulled in more people - but it didn't come across as though that was Paul's idea. Paul was the person inside the bear costume, but you can hardly call that business skill, can you?

Could this be another one of those were Lord Sugar wishes he could have fired more than one candidate. Paul for cocking up the TV add, Saira for the cocking up the Poster add, never admiring anything is her fault & trying to blame others. Like i said above Saira will drive Lord Sugar potty & likewise Paul would also drive Lord Sugar potty if he picks either one of them as the winner.

Raj was completely anonymous throughout the task, lucky he wasn't in the final boardroom he might have been fired instead.

Paul & Saira are better candidates than Rachel, but both are annoying for different reasons.

I don't think Sir Alan would have fired Paul or Saira for this task. As Rachel said, she was fired because Sir Alan likes people who talk a lot and defend themselves strongly. Such has been the case on every series.

And I actually think that generally Rachel was a better candidate than Paul.

Right guys, a huge apology from me. I have been swamped this week and I was away over the weekend so I really didn't have an opportunity to see the episode until tonight. However, I should be free tomorrow and as its one of my favourite episodes ever next week, I really want to kick off the discussion, if that's OK with everyone?

Right, well for once, it wasn't difficult to see who was going to win. The editing made it clear, bar a few issues with First Forte's TV advert, that Impact were going to lose this task and I think they lost it within five minutes when Paul ignored Saira's advice of finding a concept and a strapline before thinking about their advert. Paul made the mistake that Raef and Michael paid for in Series 4, in that he focused too much on the advert and not enough on the brand.

Oh Rachel... Before the re-watch I would have fired you on this task, but I genuinely believe she should have stayed. She is one of the candidates I have been genuinely really impressed with on the re-watch and I think that her exit here was unfortunate, since she had been one of the better candidates in the past. However, I think George is right and Rachel herself is right in that she wasn't outspoken enough and had she talked more, she could well have escaped. It was interesting that whilst the Mood Board wasn't that bad, it was the thing she got lambasted for as opposed to her utterly awful pitch, which wasn't even mentioned in the boardroom, iirc. I do feel as though that though she didn't perform on this task, her previous performances merited one more chance or at least a second stab at management, but really, she shot herself in the foot with that pitch and sadly its what she is now remembered for.

I would have fired Paul actually. As I mentioned earlier, by being too focused on the TV advert, he sunk his team's chance of victory in the first few moments of the task. This poor choice of direction probably wouldn't have even been rectified had it not been for Saira staying up late to think about what slogans were needed. And it was evident how little Paul regarded this as he said something along the lines of "I only want to spend ten minutes on it". I did think that the TV Advert was Godawful, up there with the worst in the show's history, with the aggressive mother and the loud kid and the fact that it wasn't really obvious what the advert was about. I think he should have done what Miriam did and switched roles on the third day and sorted out the Macman and the pitch himself and left the editing of the advert with Raj and Saira and I do believe that Paul needs to take some responsibility for the Macman and the poor pitch because of this. However, because he conceded this very fact in the boardroom and the fact that he admitted he wasn't a good leader and the fact that he had been one of the top performers before this task, I didn't have a huge issue with him staying or at least getting a second chance.

Saira fully deserved her trip to the boardroom this week, HOWEVER, I really feel as though she deserved to survive this week as she was the one who spoke the most sense and had Paul listened in the early stages, they could well have won. In addition, she did own up to her mistakes with the Macman, in spite of Paul claiming that she wouldn't do so. Also, I feel as though this was her first poor task out of six and it would have been a bit unfair had she been fired. I do feel as though she was close to the exit door considering she appeared to ignore Paul's brief about sticking to the Macman. Her comment to Paul about the print ad that "No offense but that looks sh*t" was outrageous considering it was her task to do that! I'm not sure why she was crying at the end, as she had been in the boardroom before and she deserved to be in there but I suppose it was the closest she came to going so that's why she was emotional.

Miriam was excellent, btw! I thought she was arguably the best PM of the six weeks as she ran her team brilliantly efficiently and came up with the concept first, which was innovative. The print ads looked good, she created her own terrific logo and she had a vision but incorporated other ideas. No-one else on First Forte was shown much but I think it speaks volumes that their concepts were very good and they created two print ads and not one. Very, very impressed with her.

So tomorrow I can't wait to watch it. Its one of my favourite ever episodes and I have some strong opinions myself so I'm really looking forward to it!

That's fine. You're so much better at it than me anyway!


As Sir Alan said, it was so blatantly obvious that he asked Raj who won!


Yes. I remember saying on a thread a while back that Series 1 wasn't great for the reputation of women in business, as only Saira, Miriam and Rachel stood out as contenders and you responded with something like, 'I agree with Saira and Miriam, but Rachel? Really?' And I wondered if you remembered much about Rachel bar the advertising task.

I think that all three of the boardroom people had a lot to answer for, but actually I would say Rachel was the least weak out of the three. I think Paul should have gone for reasons I'll go into in the next paragraph. As for Saira, while I don't believe that she should have gone, I do think that she was a factor in the Rachel issue. As Rachel said, they disagreed on what the poster should look like, and Saira wasn't backing down, so in the end Rachel had to leave Saira to it. I think that as Rachel apparently had some experience in advertising, the poster could have looked a lot better had Saira let her have more of a hand in it. Therefore, Rachel didn't want to do nothing and thus put her in the firing line, which was why she went off to make the mood board because she wasn't sure what else to do. That's the way that I saw it.


I wouldn't say that he was one of the top performers prior to this task. He was brilliant in Task 1 and did a fairly strong job on Task 3, though didn't shine as much as Saira in the latter. On the other tasks, he didn't stand out for me at all. In Task 2, all the boys worked quite well together, but I didn't see what Paul really did that was so special - James seemed to be the shining beacon on that one. In Task 4, he made a major mess-up with the figures, which set the team back a bit. They were later saved with the bear costume - but I don't rate Paul for that, as it wasn't his idea and he was chosen to wear it more because he happens to have quite a petite stature than anything else. In Task 5, we agreed that he was very lucky not to be fired, as he hardly sold anything, brought his own opinions into choosing the art, made a big mistake with the Big Issue seller and started a feud with Saira in the boardroom over a passing comment that she made. So out of six tasks, we can say that he's done a noticeably good job on two of them. That doesn't really make him one of the stronger performers. I think that Saira and Rachel had both done better than him up generally, but that's just my opinion.


I don't think that Saira deserved to go either for the reasons you've said, although it was her weakest task so far. I think she was crying at the end because it was the first task that she'd really been criticised. She was in the boardroom in Task 1, but only by default as PM, and it was generally agreed that she'd been one of the strongest in the team, if not the strongest. I also think that Saira felt sorry for Rachel, and possibly felt a bit responsible for her going, as I said above; Saira and Rachel were on the same team for every task, and also appeared to be quite good friends, so maybe Saira felt that she'd lost an ally there.


I was impressed by Miriam and her team as well. In fact, because of this task she is I think that this was the task when she really came to the forefront.

Incidentally, wasn't it so much easier on the candidates than in subsequent series? In later years, they were never allowed so much help from the experts, they had to do everything themselves.

I forgot to say yesterday, I would say that the advert was in my opinion joint worst with 'UGH! IT'S HORRIBLE! THIS ISN'T THE ENGLISH SPARKLING WINE I ORDERED!' In terms of the campaign in general though, I'd say that it's the worst ever in any series. I can't think of another occasion on this task that every aspect of a campaign was bad. Even the Wake Up Call advert was professionally directed by Kimberly and looked quite nice, despite their appalling concept.

Once again Raj slides through, he may be getting poor edits but really...
Of those in the boardroom Saira should have gone, her ad was appalling and she was completely responsible. Once again more bluster, I'm a professional, in my professional capacity...yada yada yada.She is all smoke and mirrors but has a good work ethic and lots of energy which gets her through.

You are on a roll, rudeboy - you should be out enjoying the last of the summer

Yes Lord Sid loves his mercurial gobby sales people - to the detriment of quieter possibly more competent types.

Do you really think she's worse than Paul? As Jack said, her press campaign was horrible, but I think she did have some good ideas to start off with, and Paul was an awful Project Manager, and at the end couldn't even see what was wrong with his advert.

Not a hot weather fan, I prefer the radiated from a plasma

I think the main problem with Paul is his massive ego. As a PM he was hopeless, but he did leave the press campaign to the two women, so they were totally responsible.