Wednesday 27 May 2009

The Apprentice - series 5, ep 9: Brash Ben fired after failing at the Baby Show

Brash Ben became the latest candidate to be fired from this year's competition after failing to impress in the Baby Show task.

Errors over product selection cost Empire dear as they struggled to sell birthing pools and rocking horses to niche markets.

Sir Alan had laid on prime sites for the teams at the Baby Show at Earls' Court in west London.

And he named the two parents from the remaining candidates as project managers.

James was tasked with leading Ben, Debra and Yasmina for Empire against Lorraine in charge of Kate and Howard for Ignite in re-arranged teams.

But their first task was the choose the two products which they would need to sell the following day.

On Ignite, Lorraine, who had been to the Baby Show before, suggested they need to focus on a high-end product and an impulse purchase.

Meanwhile, on Empire, James and Ben clashed over the logistics of seeing each of the presentations.

To be fair to the teams, not many of the choices were particularly appealing.

Two of the pitches which they received were for babies' high-heel shoes and a cardboard cot.

The teams stayed clear of those but it was undoubtedly Ignite who did better with the rest.

Lorraine was highly impressed with the collapsable pushchair which looked ideal for parents who travel or have a busy lifestyle.

On her sub-team, Kate and Howard went for baby head-guards with Kate explaining they could play "on the guilt factor" of the parents.

Empire had rejected both of these products. James thought the pushchair was nothing special while Ben and Debra derided the head-guard as being xxxx.

Instead, Ben and Debra - in particular - was completely taken in by the prospect of selling rocking horses.

This was despite the obvious high-risk strategy in that they were priced between £1700 and £4000, and the owner admitted that his custom was often royalty.

Meanwhile, James and Yasmina chose the birthing pool even though the statistics showed only 2.2% of women have home-births, something which Lorraine had noticed.

But the exhibition centre, Igntie suffered some bad news even before the set-up.

A rival stall was selling the same the pushchair. Worse than that, it would later emerge that they were selling for £35 cheaper.

Lorraine was also having a right battle royale, still struggling comically to put up and collapse the pushchair despite a night of practice.

They even resorted to asking a punter how to do it.

Nick Hewer said: "This pushchair looks to me like the most complicated thing when, in fact, if done properly it is the simplest thing with a great selling point.

"She's making a complete horlicks of it."

Empire realised their main chance of victory was to sell a single rocking horse but the price tags on display deterred potential buyers.

Once the tags were removed, the horses received much more attention but punters continued to be put off once the prices were revealed.

As the day came to a close, Empire nearly stole victory when Debra almost sold a rocking horse to a collector.

But, unable to reduce their price below £1700, the collector walked away leaving Empire staring defeat in the face.

The results were not a surprise - Ignite had made £1600 on their pushchair and head-guards while Empire managed only £722 on the discounted birthing pool.

No rocking horses had been sold and so it was no surprise when James hauled Ben and Debra back in the boardroom with him.

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