Engineered Exit

Week seven brought about another challenging task for this years candidates – I do wonder how some of these people got on the show and operate in business.

This week task was to create a ‘Fremium Magazine’ and pull in the highest advertising revenue.

It appeared that a few individuals were lacking some basic advertising knowledge. It’s a very well know thing that with advertising comes negotiation – A rate card is not a fixed thing. Maybe if Jim had known this he would have had a chance at winning the task.

Venture headed up by Jim opted for an over 60’s magazine with the theme 60’s are the new 30’s. The initial concept was to move away from the cliché concept that life is over at 60. In all fairness they had identified a gap in the market and the focused group loved the idea of having something different to read that didn’t include knitting patterns, denture information and crosswords. If only they had stuck rigidly to the above the outcome could have been different.

However they start of the down hill spiral started with the name ‘Hip Replacement’ – supposedly a play on words as in Hip meaning – cool and youthful, however mixed with the font style and imagery the whole magazine looked standard, old and non adventurous. I’m just glad they stayed away from ‘Coffin Dodger’, they definitely wouldn’t have got anywhere with that. If they had listened to the ‘coffin dodgers’ in the focus meeting they wanted something jokey and humorous like: - Zimmer or Oldies. Personally I think Zimmer would have gone down a storm, it’s catchy, relevant and humorous.

Logic headed up by Natasha went the other end of the scale and decided to create a Lads mag with a slightly high end business feel. The magazine titled Covered was out dated and an old version of Loaded and looked exactly like any Lads mag with a half naked girl on the front. I am just happy they didn’t go for their other option for the title – Naked Free that would have been total cheese.

I some how feel that a category  titled, How to Blow Your Load – does not scream high end or lads mag with a difference. That might be because Natasha didn’t really want to listen to her Focus group as she thought they were ‘quite focused’ – surely that’s the best type of focus group. Her range was 21- 35, she asked a local rugby team who gave great feedback and didn’t really listen to them.

Team Logic ended up winning the task – but generating more revenue than Venture. Jim brought Susan and Glenn into the boardroom with him, and the insults started flying. Susan was like to a Bambi and a mouse. Then the ‘mouse roared like a lion’ (Sir Alan) and Jim was criticised was being a ‘passive aggressive’ (Karen) and like trying to nail jelly to wall (Nick), because he never isolates himself and takes responsibility.

Despite all of the above insults the mouse trap did not snap, the jelly slipped through and Glenn was fired.

Lord Sugar said: 'I've had problems the past few weeks grasping what your USP is...

'I've never come across an engineer who can turn his hands to business. You're fired.'

What will next week bring?