Summoned to Alexandra Palace on a chill morning the six remaining apprentices were told that they would be selling live on TV. This is supposedly Sir Alan Sugar's favourite task where he looks for skill in product selection, assessing the target audience and the ability to cope under extreme pressure.
It was quickly decided that Howard would lead Kate and Lorraine for Ignite, but Debra, Yasmina and James had a much harder time deciding on who would be Empire's project leader, with both Debra and Yasmina determined to take the role. After more than an hour of wrangling Debra finally backed down in the face of Yasmina's intransigence.
This task is very much about selecting the right products, products that will suit the target market. Yasmina chose to go for the cheap end of the market, the highest priced product her team chose was £29.99, while Empire went for a couple of cheap items and two higher-priced items, a strange gold leaf-patterned leather jacket and a low-fat electric fryer at £139.99.
Fortunately the teams had been given time for a practice session before they went live on air, and the sight of Lorraine attempting to demonstrate a sat-nav really was 'car-crash TV'! For Empire James and Yasmina paired up to sell a remote-control toy car and a pack of elasticated hair-clips which Yasmina tried to offer at £9.99 when the actual price was £17.99. Oh dear. Debra turned out to be the real star of the day when she went solo to sell her products, a 'Polo Pancho' versatile scarf and a Grabosaurus (a device for clearing leaves) and gave a very professional and accomplished performance.
Howard partnered Lorraine to sell the leather jacket and the chip fryer but they spent so much time discussing the rather obvious attributes of the product that they neglected to tell people how to buy it! Kate went solo to sell an infrared air guitar and Scamp and Sooty, the sequined cat and dog - as Lorraine pointed out, one should never under-estimate the craft market. Surprisingly they did actually sell one!
Back at the boardroom it was announced that Empire had made sales totalling £1,541.88 to Ignite's £1,376.73, and their treat was to take part in some very scary looking aerobatics. I do hope none of them was airsick.
Ignite's loss of the task was even more galling when they heard thet they had picked the two best-selling products, but had signally failed to sell them. Sir Alan had a difficult choice to make, he had good reason to fire any or all of them. Odd that in the current financial climate he should be looking for a risk taker, yet his argument against Howard was that he is risk-averse, and Nick stuck the boot in by declaring that Howard was 'not a great warrior'. Sir Alan said that he is looking for something special, not a Steady Eddie, and for that reason Howard had to go.