Sir Alan told the teams that their task was to create a branding campaign for a pair of trainers. The clue in the brief was the instruction to come up with an advert that "sells kit, not wins the Montrose award for advertising tossers". Sir Alan likes rather straight forward advertising. They would have to come up with a 30 second TV ad and a bill board poster.

Sir Alan appointed Ghazal as team leader following her plea at the end of the last episode. Her team (Stealth) included Katie, Kristina and Naomi. Jadine was charged with leading Tre, Lohit and Simon as team Eclipse.

Eclipse decided on a brand called simply, "Street", with a campaign targetting street culture, and the "bump and grind" generation, as Tre put it. Margaret Mountford asked for clarification and Jadine amusingly told her that it was to do with dance "like the twist or the tango". Jadine seems to have quietened down and I was disappointed she didn't resume he Eclipse branding obsession from the early episodes and try to name the shoes after the team.

Stealth's brainstorming came up with the name "Jam", and the theme "image is everything". Katie wasn't impressed with that and pressured Ghazal into switching to "music is everything", which caused divisions in the team although not I'm not sure why as each idea seemed as vague and useless as the other.

Eclipse did a poor job of hiring performers for their campaign, with Jadine failing to specify that their talent needed to be able to dance too. Simon stepped up to his plate with his street dancing, and also did the vocals with some kind of awful, cringeworthy take on Gil Scott Heron's, The Revolution Will Not Be Televised with a rallying call to "Reclaim The street". Eugh. Tre was concerned at how the team's antics were harming his reputation, with a complaint to camera that "Its discrediting me now", as if his reputation had somehow remained unharmed during the past seven weeks. He also seemed slightly envious of Simon's starring role, with the cutting remark "there's a fine line between good fancers and totally shite bollocks dancers"

The teams had to present their ideas to he advertising agency, CHI. Katie's presentation was full of flannel about a boy called Jay, who typified their target market. Jadine's presentation seemed horrible, with an odd, stilted delivery in the poshest voice she could muster. I imagine she was reciting "the rain in spain falls mainly in the plain" during the journey to the agency.

The teams met in the boardroom to find out who had won. Sir Alan wasn't over impressed with either, but he blasted Stealth's effort, saying he didn't know what was being sold and asking where the branding was. Katie gave every impression of thinking Sir Alan was a bit of a simpleton, asking "didn't you see it in the final frame?... No?" It seemed more obvious than ever at that point that Katie thinks she's a little bit above the job that's on offer - and maybe she's right?

Katie is well known now for the stinging soundbite, usually wishing some cruel physical demise on her oppponents. This week she didn't disappoint, with her thoughts on Kristina, telling the camera she's like to see Kristina fired and "more physically that just in the boardroom scenario".

Ghazal kept Naomi and Katie in the boardroom with her, and put up a sprited performance, but her performance on the task itself was so transparently weak that Sir Alan had no choice but to tell her she was fired.

Labels: apprentice, review, tv