This week’s episode is all about car advertising which is apt as I am looking to buy a new family car that is perfect for exploring the Bucks countryside whilst filled with family, friends, pets and all sorts. 

The candidates need to create advertising campaigns consisting of a TV advert and digital billboard advert and pitch these to industry experts.

Let’s hope the candidates practiced their pitching skills as, so far, the standard of public speaking on The Apprentice is surprisingly low for ones that aren’t too ‘shy’ to appear on TV. 

Elizabeth starts to dominate from the outset telling James, the PM (project manager), that a woman needs to be on the TV advert team and then keeps quiet and proceeds to point both of her thumbs at herself! 
James does not hesitate to be dominated and immediately does what

Elizabeth commands. Perhaps not a good sign of things to come for poor James. I must admit, it is hard watching someone getting dominated to that extent. When I saw something similar happening to Oliver on our series of The Apprentice last year, I stepped in to prevent it.

The team pick a Norman village as their car advertising destination thinking it is a beautiful chocolate box English village but then realising that it is, in fact, a medieval village complete with chickens. 

So, the team proceed to create a TV advert selling a ‘modern car’ in this ‘medieval village’ and the outcome is not great. On the sub-team, Bushra says she does not understand team member Joanna, labelling her as ‘aggressive’ while Joanna says that Bushra is deliberately trying not to understand. Imagine having this sort of argument at work? I can admit that open and encouraged ‘finger pointing’ on The Apprentice was not something I was comfortable with.

The other team seem to be doing well with Michaela taking the lead as project manager. Apart from Sarah labelling Anisa as ‘style over substance’ the team create a reasonable advertising campaign and pitch, so it comes as no surprise they win the task. 

For James and his team its tea time at the Bridge Café accompanied by sad piano music and conversation about chickens and whose fault it was. 

Back in the boardroom, Lord Sugar taking the lead as he angrily accuses Elizabeth of making it ‘the Elizabeth show’. Once satisfied that she is back in her box, he moves on to James saying, ‘you are looking to get a 250K investment from me, but it looks like you can’t even run a bath’.

Joanna does not get away with it either as he acknowledges she is a ‘good talker’ but nothing more. Sadly, Sajan gets fired with the words ‘I’ve just not seen enough of you’. So as the search for the next apprentice continues so does my search for the ultimate family car.