Jim Eastwood and Natasha Scribbins were given the opportunity to be project leaders this week and neither stood out as candidates likely to win the Apprentice. The task was to create a new magazine given away free to consumers and paid for purely by advertising. Team Venture, led by Jim, went for the over 60’s market whilst Natasha took team Logic into the world of soft-porn with a “Lad’s mag”. Getting the strategy right is a key part of leadership and both team leaders applied some business sense to their choice of target market.
Where both Natasha and Jim came unstuck was in the execution phase. They demonstrated a lack of listening skills as they tried to develop their magazine concepts.
Natasha ignored the advice of half her team and the consumer focus group who all said make the lads mag, “Covered”, subtle and upmarket. Natasha went in the opposite direction and created something akin to the most tasteless excesses of the 1990’s.
Jim’s team was told by the focus group not to be condescending. So it was bizarre that his publication included an article on how to use a mobile phone. What sunk Venture in my view was the awful title “Hip Replacement” and the even more awful front cover design (courtesy of Jim himself) which looked like something found in a doctor’s waiting room 40 years ago. The final nail in team Venture’s coffin was Jim’s inability to negotiate price, on what proved to be the most decisive of the three pitches to media buyers made by the teams.
I thought the overall result was heavily distorted by one of the media buyers, who gave everything to Natasha’s team and nothing to Jim’s. This decision meant Jim lost and made his first visit to the boardroom along with Susan Ma and Glenn Ward. Judged just on this task Jim certainly deserved to go, as he was the principle architect of the loss but in the end it was Glenn who was fired for not really making much of an impression throughout the series.
Whilst Tom Pellereau is top of the voting on the Righttrack blog, I still have Helen Louise Milligan at the top of my list of potential winners.
Vote here for the person you think will be the Apprentice winner.
By Jon Davies | Righttrack’s Digital Marketing Manager