Episode 5 of the Apprentice illustrated again what was highlighted in the previous episode – that failure to set the right strategic direction for the team is almost guaranteed to get the losing project leader fired.
The teams were tasked with launching a new pet food product, complete with packaging, poster and 30-second television advert. Vincent Disneur led team Logic to another loss and was one of two candidates fired this week along with Ellie Reed. Vincent’s demise was a result of his failure to get the marketing positioning for his dog food product “Everydog” right.
Marketing is simple in essence: identify your target audience, understand why they buy and then offer a product that better meets their needs than competitive products. Wrap it all up with a strong, fun communication campaign which clearly states the product benefits and you have a chance for success.
Vincent didn’t seem to grasp the idea of targeting specific market segments and decided to go for the whole of the dog food market with “Everydog”. He was cheered on by Jim Eastwood who claimed credit for coming up with the name until Logic lost the task and suddenly it was a team idea! Vincent could have saved himself had he listened to the advice of the vet in the consumer focus group he attended, who gave him the reasons why the dog food market was segmented by age and size of dog. He also failed to listen to Tom Pellereau, who warned of the pitfalls of the Everydog” approach.
Having got the product positioning wrong, the marketing campaign was executed in an OK fashion other than the appalling “Everydog” can packaging. Vincent found himself in the boardroom and was fired but not before Ellie was also given the push for appearing to have very little impact on the first five weeks of the show. Vincent could maybe have saved himself but he seemed scared of taking Jim into the boardroom.
To be fair, choosing the team with the best overall campaign was a close run thing. Had Lord Sugar chosen the other team then Glenn Ward would have certainly gone. Glenn, leading team Venture, displayed none of the skills required by a project leader. He appeared to ignore the input from the majority of his team and came up with his own daft product name: “Cat Size”. Glenn combined this with a meaningless positioning statement: “feel their light”. It was truly dreadful.
What saved Glenn was that at least his product had been positioned in the market: “for cats with a weight problem”. The design execution of the marketing campaign was good and the pack design was also very good. Had he lost the task he would have been fired for his inability to bring out the best from others, a key skill for those in a leadership position. In my view, he has little chance of making the final.
We still have ten candidates and it is hard to make a case for many of them at the moment. In any event Jim and Glenn will not be on my shortlist.
Vote here for your tip to win the Apprentice 2011.
By Jon Davies | Righttrack’s Digital Marketing Manager