HOW TO SELL AN ELECTRIC BIKE…..BADLY….
It was week five of The Apprentice and the teams had to create a marketing campaign for new electric bikes.
Woken by the telephone at 4am the 13 candidates had 20 minutes to get ready for the cars as they headed off to meet Lord Sugar. How do they get ready in that time and look so polished? Is that real? I’ll have to ask one of the candidates when I meet one.
Arriving in South Kensington at Imperial College London, they were told that they had to create a marketing campaign — including a name and logo for an electric bike with a tv advert, digital billboard and then pitch to industry experts.
Lord Sugar set the scene by saying that climate change is something which is at the forefront of business minds and that people are looking to technology to make greener choices. The teams were given two days to come up with their persuasive vision for these electric motorbikes. We all knew that in all likelihood we’d end up not persuaded!
In Team Apex, three people wanted to be project manager and Marnie got the vote — even though she admitted she knew nothing about electric bikes, didn’t even have a driving licence but she did know about marketing. She immediately wanted to focus on pitching to ‘petrol’ heads because she didn’t think a ‘green’ message was sexy. It was all about leather and masculinity — hardly…
