The final task for the candidates was to develop a new chocolate, along with packaging and shoot an advertisement.
The two remaining candidates are the team leaders and had to choose their team. Yasmina won the toss and chose first.
They started with the idea of marketing chocolates to men, but were talked out of it by the experts rather quickly – it’s women who eat chocolate and women who buy chocolate.
In a quick change Yasmina decided on a different path; “Coco Electric” chocolates with unusual flavour combinations such as strawberry and basil. Their branding was good, using black and shocking pink they created a logo, posters and good packaging. The pricing was at 6 pounds for a box of 18 chocolates.
The downside was the flavours, the actors used in the ads spat them out – not a good start. The ad itself was fairly cheesy, a small group sitting around eating chocolate and getting a “shock”.
On Kate’s team Ben came up with the concept of his and hers chocolates, and wanted to put them in a box shaped like a “69”. Kate squashed the box idea by saying she couldn’t credibly present it at the pitch. But she cleverly took the best of the idea and transformed it. Creating three trays in a small box “for him”, “for her” and “to share”.
The flavours were fairly high end luxury flavours – chosen by Debra, they sounded great, but came with a heavy price tag of 16 pounds. This took it out of mass market, but it was not a specialist/artisan product.
The initial name was awful “Intimate” when combined with the pastel colours gave quite the wrong branding, reminding Nick of a product in the category “feminine freshness”. Debra spotted it, Kate listened, and a ten minute brainstorm later it was rebranded as “Choc D’Amour”. The ad took romance into the naughty zone, and apart from the smeared chocolate was really good.
The presentations were both good, Kate was a much better presenter but there was more styling in Yasmina’s presentation.
In the board room Sir Alan kept the audience guessing, or at least tried to, balancing Kate’s shortcomings against the possibility of Yasmina leaving to continue her own business.
Right on cue: Yasmina; you’re hired.
Good decision – I think she has incredible determination and a lot of untapped potential. I think we’ve already seen the best of Kate.
So that’s it until next year, when there’ll be at least one change to the line up, Margaret Mountford is leaving the show to be a student. OK I guess studying for a Ph.D. in papyrology isn’t that “studentish”. The show won’t be the same without her.
Change Meme 