Week two, and task two is a generic “design a product, and pitch it” effort, set up to force the apprentices into an unfamiliar situation, and then laugh at them for doing it wrong. Tonight, they’re sorting out a whole new baby product. Who needs massive companies with enormous research and design budgets, when a handful of spotty little sods can make you millions overnight?

The teams, still boys vs. girls, are given a pep talk on babies, and what a ballache they are to look after. It seems vaguely irrelevant to the task, and only there to stop them rutting as soon as the cameras are off.

Lewis takes over as the boys’ PM, instilling his troops with confidence by admitting that he’s got a couple of ideas, but they’re rubbish. Walking attitude tank Gbemi puts her name forward, as does guitar-strap designer Lizzie. Seriously, a guitar-strap designer. Don’t be daft, love. The girls’ team cruelly overlook her, and unanimously vote for Gbemi.

Harry M and James have the middle-class-design-twat equivalent of a rap battle, outdoing each other with terrible idea after terrible idea. “Well, I have a soothing sound system. In YOUR face.” Eventually, after talking to a bloke from a Leading Store Chain, they come up with an insulated water bottle, stored inside a toy animal. They argue over whose idea it was, which annoys Hewer, but they’ve obviously seen the program before, and know how important it is to claim credit for every minor win. They argue some more about which animal they should have, as though it matters. They settle on a hippo, because, er, y’know. Reasons.

The girls come up with a support cushion / sling combination, for supporting a baby’s head or something. They must select a family for the promotional art, and Zara decides that a black mum, dark haired dad, and ginger kid will be fine. Gbemi absolutely pisses herself laughing when she finds out.

Ben makes his first contribution to the series, earnestly pointing out that “This product is a new… product. That’s gonna sell.”

The Pitches

Project managers Gbemi and Lewis take on the first two pitches themselves. Gbemi staccatos at John Lewis, a series of shrieked bullet points that only confuse the pitchee. “What does it do?” is the only feedback. Gbemi does exactly the same thing in the second pitch, and is met with the same blank stare and question.

Lewis stares intently at his Folder Of Words, terrified to break eye-contact with the page. He’s clearly only written bullet points, and tried to fit his speech around it. It ends up sounding as unrehearsed and unprofessional as a BBC reporter on Final Score. “er, er, it’s… a, er, SAFETY!”

For pitch three, Haya storms it. Gbemi spins this as a win for her, because she let Haya do it. Marvellous. Harry H does the boys’ final pitch, and is annoyingly likeable and professional. The sod.

The Boardroom

Sugs hates the sling, because it looks like a West Ham scarf. Cue some awkward banter with West Ham’s vice-chairwoman, Karren. He also hates the interracial family, quipping about the baby being adopted.

Lewis is roundly slated for being a rubbish Project Manager. The kids clearly hate each other as much as the adults do in their series, but haven’t got the experience of having to hide it, so everything just flows out, a torrent of outright hostility, rather than confidence-sapping undermining and sniping.

The boys sold 5,200 units (after Alan went to great pains to explain to the companies that the actual products would be LOADS BETTER). After two retailers, the girls have no sales. Expect them to get shitloads from the last one. Yup, Haya’s pitch to Mothercare has swung it, with 7,500 units sold – a win for the girls.

Lewis still doesn’t realise that his pitches were terrible, so brings back James and Ben.

James starts banging on about an idea he had for a book, where mum and dad could record themselves reading it, and the baby can play it back later. That’s loads better than just reading to them, well done. Ben is in trouble because he did bugger all.

Lewis finally admits to screwing up the pitch, while Harry M is only back because he’s a bit of a cocky gobshite. Ben starts pleading with Sugs, giving it all “I really want this.” It’s not the X Factor, mate.

And for that reason, Boring Ben, the Beano Bully is… fired.

Comments

1. Tim says:

   November 1, 2011 at 5:00 pm

   A bit of a dull episode, this one. As always, only one pitch really mattered (Mothercare). As always, the PMs decided they should hog the pitches, and both were terrible. I have to admit I’ve never been a big fan of this task, because there is simply no way the teams can make anything other than a complete mess of it. It’s much more fun when they should really do a half-decent job and then fail miserably.

   James and Harry M should just be thrown into a dark room for an idea-off – and left in there permanently.

   As for the baby basics lesson, was it just me or did that doll they were passing round look a lot like Mahamed – only bigger? Just saying.

   http://slouchingtowardsthatcham.com/2011/11/01/young-apprentice-no-go-as-jojo-says-no-no-to-hippo/
2. Hutcho says:

   November 2, 2011 at 3:39 pm

   I’m inclined to agree Tim and in my mind I can’t seem to get away from the fact that I still reckon the boys won the task by two retailers to one – the order numbers seem fairly arbitrary especially when the reasoning behind the retailer’s purchase is ‘we’d probably buy if you made it lots better’. Surely the victory here is having two ‘successful’ pitches compared to the opposition only having one. Still, as always, the episode made my teeth itchy so job done really.

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