York Apprentice 2010: Day Four

After coming up with an idea for the perfume, the teams had to design a poster for their product and work with YSTV to film a 30 second advert. This challenge was previously used in last year’s Apprentice, although the product they had to market then was a new brand of soft drink.

Co-President Matthew Freckelton spoke positively of the challenge, telling The Yorker: “This challenge has proved to be popular this year, as it was last year. We may find ‘The YSTV Challenge’ becomes a staple of the York Apprentice for many years to come.” Scott Murphy was also full of praise for ‘The YSTV Challenge’, adding: “The teams have found this challenge enjoyable because it’s tested their creativity. It shows there’s more to business and enterprise than pounds and pence, facts and figures.”

The teams’ posters and adverts were judged by a panel of five. The panel was made up by Michael Datta, a former Marketing Director of the York Entreprenuers; Laurence Nair-Price, the Managing Director of Leeds-based drinks company Schmoo; Pauline Everitt, of York’s Burgins Perfumery; and two representatives from YSTV who helped film the adverts, Alex Appleton and Alex Balmer.

First up were Team Zeal, who were marketing ‘Gravity’ – a three-in-one perfume which offered a scent for work life, a scent for general day use and a scent for going out at night. Team Zeal proposed bottling the three scents separately, but marketing and selling them as one perfume – the three bottles would combine to make one circular bottle. The team called their product “ambitious”, but Nair-Price was critical of their poster, which he suggested was too ambiguous and gave no information about the product. Team Zeal argued that perfume posters are generally quite abstract, but Everitt agreed with Nair-Price that the poster needed more information.

Team Zeal were followed by Team Laboratorium, who offered the judges Pura Vida – “the new lease of life”. The perfume was intended to be suitable for use both at day and at night, and the focus of Laboratorium’s advertising and marketing was releasing women’s potential rather than trying to alter their personalities. The advert for Pura Vida was well-received by the judges, but Datta believed the poster was too red, which made it difficult to read.

Team 4 Sugars Please were next, marketing Choix – “the personal perfumery”. The inspiration behind Choix was offering customers a ‘mix and match’ perfume – the product was to be sold as nine individual mini-perfumes, which women could combine to make their own scent. The nine mini-perfumes were made up of three top notes, three middle notes and three base notes, giving customers the choice of 27 different scents. 4 Sugars Please advertised Choix with an advert in the style of a silent movie, a concept which Balmer was full of praise for.

Team We’re Going to Keith chegWIN put together a confident presentation, in which they marketed Fresha – “a new era fragrance for lads”. The product was to be marketed at 16 to 24 year olds, with university students at the heart of the demographic. The inspiration chegWIN had for Fresha was a desire to invent a product which could be somewhere between a deodorant and an aftershave. To emphasise this point, Fresha was to be sold in an aluminium can, which chegWIN argued would cut the cost of the product for customers. Nair-Price seemed to like the idea behind Fresha, but argued that selling it in an aluminium can would make the product look too much like any other deodorant, which would put people off buying it at the teams recommended retail price of £15-£20.

Team Big, who presented their product fifth, tried to sell Liberty to the judges – a perfume which was intended to empower women. The idea behind the product was that the women would buy the product themselves rather than be given it as a gift. Team Big also had ideas for the growth of the product, suggesting that at a later date they could release a second perfume, and that the bottles of the two perfumes could fit together. Nair-Price responded by telling the team that their advert had made it look like the product was for women who’d just been dumped; Team Big responded by saying that the advert was meant to make the women look distressed, and suggested this could perhaps have been made clearer if there were other adverts for Liberty where the women were in alternative distressful situations.

Last up was Team Success, marketing Chase – a fragrance for men which challenged customers to “follow the scent”. The team had a number of ideas for how they could market the product, including offering samples in men’s magazines and advertising Chase on social networking sites. Success also had suggestions for the future marketing of the product, suggesting that after the release of Chase, a second perfume could be released that was linked to Chase. Appleton told the team their video made Chase look like a perfume for stalkers; Success defended themselves by saying that their initial idea for an advert had to be rethought due to a problem on Thursday morning.

The teams had to meet certain criteria for this challenge, which the judges marked them on. After calculating an average of the judges’ scores for each team, the teams were called back in. Team 4 Sugars Please were announced as the winners – the judges were impressed with the way the team answered questions after their presentation. 4 Sugars Please were joined by Laboratorium, Team Success and We’re Going To Keith chegWIN, with Team Zeal and Team Big eliminated. Nair-Price said afterwards that all the teams should be proud of their efforts, and Murphy added that the quality of their adverts was fantastic.

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