Lee McQueen wins the Apprentice! Has the world gone mad?
So, how on earth did Lee “That’s what I’m talking about!!” McQueen win The Apprentice last night??
The guy has never shown any talent in any of the tasks, and his leadership skills are non existent. He did an impression of a “reverse pterodactyl” in his interview for God’s sake, lied about his uni education on his CV and generally showed no business qualities at all throughout the whole 12 weeks.
Not to mention the fact that in last night’s final task he created a men’s fragrance called “Roulette” - I mean come on! Did you see the design of the bottle? probably not as it was hardly shown - which may have something to do with the fact that it was shaped like a roulette wheel and was the biggest piece of tat I ever saw. I mean who would buy that? But despite the cheesy 1970’s style tv ad, and the fact that the fragrance was criticised as being “bland” by experts, they won!!! Not to mention the fact that loads of the industry insiders expressed concern of its gambling connotations.
Whereas the other team created a fragrance that was critically acclaimed by the top perfume smelling fella in the world and the bottle had an innovative and unique design - they lost! The only (weak) argument was that their bottle would be expensive to make because it’s so unique. So what? The uplift in sales due to it’s uniqueness and novelty value would more than compensate.
Wrong wrong wrong!
What I’m listening to right now: Robin Thicke – “Magic” - you know the one from the Samsung Soul U900 mobile phone ad. Brilliant.
Thursday, June 12th, 2008 at 1:04 pm and is filed under General Ramblings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Welcome to my blog. My name is Kieron Donoghue and I run UK Offer Media Ltd. I thought it would be fun to post a daily (well hopefully daily) blog, writing about my experiences in Internet Marketing and more specifically Affiliate Marketing. I'll include some personal stuff too, probably about my other passions, music and cars. Please feel free to post your comments and thoughts too.
June 12th, 2008 at 1:26 pm
Plus volume would be through the roof on a fragrance that you carry around with you as opposed to one that’s destined to remain at home..
June 12th, 2008 at 1:29 pm
I think the final “task” was a filler - Sir Alan already knew who he wanted from the previous 11 weeks. That’s why he chose the teams, and gave them a “creative” task where he could choose the winning team rather than have a black and white “Team X made more money” winner.
I agree that Lee and Claire’s fragrance was naff, but whilst Alex’s unique bottle design was great, the fact remains he was told to create a product that could be sold for £29.99 - By failing to take into account the costings of that bottle he’s made a critical error and wiped out any profit that could be made. Still, he’s only 24 you know..
Personally, I think Sir Alan has made the right choice over the whole series, although I would have been just as happy to have seen Claire or Alex get the job too. Helene IMO should not have been in the final - she’s brought nothing to the table but bitching and moaning throughout this series, and it should have been a 3-way fight for the job.
June 12th, 2008 at 1:41 pm
Not sure it deserves such strong feelings!
A clear winner if you ask me - the last task is smoke and mirrors, everyone knows that.
For someone with non-existent leadership skills, he still managed to win every time he was the project leader.
June 12th, 2008 at 1:45 pm
very surprised, I was sure Bristol University student Claire was going to win… though Lee is a pure Gent, I don’t see how he has the rounded business skills.
June 12th, 2008 at 1:46 pm
I agree on this one, i’ve never really understood how Helen lasted so long in the process.
The bottle idea for Alex and Helen was original but from memory the idea came largely from the designers anyway and the costings weren’t considered.
I’ve liked Lee and Claire for a while now so I think Sir Alan made the right decision in Lee winning.
June 12th, 2008 at 1:58 pm
I find it interesting that the Roulette fragrance is getting such a slating.
If you can get over the fact that buying a fragrance with the same name a form of gambling is not encouraging you to gamble, I think the idea is quite good.
The ad (for the amount of time they had) was professional and I loved the bit in the ad where they move the fragrance across the roulette table …genius.
If you could get the actual smell right, so women love it (80% of all men’s fragrance is purchased by women, I didn’t realise this – I always buy mine in duty free myself).
I think it’s a winner, no loser, no stick, hit …I need a drink! http://www.gamcare.org.uk/
June 12th, 2008 at 2:25 pm
Completely agree with you Kieron.
I only watched two of the shows, but this guy has no refinement whatsoever. Worst of all, I saw him bully that poor lass when she returned to the house at the end of one of the shows a few weeks back (Sarah or something like that?) - he was real nasty towards her.
Alas, the negative qualities you refer to are those which generally lead to success in an Anglo-Saxon business environment.
I’ve noticed you’ve gone over 1000 readers on your Feedburner subscribers Kieron - way to go! Congratulations. Wonder if you’ll get a hattrack with the blog awards at A4U Awards next year
Nadeem
June 12th, 2008 at 2:26 pm
The job he’s going to be doing though is selling video advertising space on the tube… and that’s why he was picked - because he’s a good sales person who can keep a team buoyant and uplifted (ref: Marrakech). He’s also driven, determined and likeable.
Alex and Helene had no ideas or spark (the designer came up with the concept) and demonstrated no team ability. Claire was good, but wouldn’t have fitted in or perhaps wasn’t right for the job Sugar had in mind.
“I don’t see how he has rounded business skills” - and all of us who started out messing with websites and AM do LOL ….. perhaps some of you should apply for the next series?
June 12th, 2008 at 2:36 pm
I happen to think that that Claire carried him all the way through that final task - even down to coaching him on presentation skills.
June 12th, 2008 at 4:48 pm
The show is just for entertainment, not about business at all. If it were based on business skill, Raife would have won.
June 12th, 2008 at 5:35 pm
I agree it was a three way fight and because both members of the losing team were fired, it had to be Alex and Helene as there would have been no competition had the final been Alex vs Helene. They undoubtedly had the better campaign, product and endorsements. I agree that they it was not suited to the pricing target and the irony behind the fact that it was the designers who came up with the bottle, not the apprentices. I don’t fully agree with Lee winning over Claire though. Was it not Lee who committed the ultimate sin of having spelling mistakes in his CV?
At the end of the day, however, it was cracking entertainment!
June 12th, 2008 at 8:03 pm
Personally, I preferred Lee over motor mouth, she would have done my nut in!
June 12th, 2008 at 10:51 pm
Nah wot ahhn say’in?
June 13th, 2008 at 10:34 am
Nobody has mentioned this yet, but I think Sir Alan sees a lot of his young self in Lee - cockney boy not overly qualified but works hard and seems to have a passion to succeed.
Maybe he wants to give this ’similar bloke a chance’, although he wasn’t my preferred choice.
June 14th, 2008 at 7:11 pm
quite possible, the world has indeed gone mad, but alas… there is nothing we can do.
June 15th, 2008 at 6:42 am
Maybe the judges find it unique making it being notice. Anyway people have different tastes ang maybe it satisfied the judges.
June 15th, 2008 at 1:08 pm
Surely the whole point of the Apprentice is to pick someone who can be molded. Interesting that everyone is sticking up for his leadership skills when, arguably, the best person for creating and leading cohesive teams (Lucinda) was fired last week. Personally, I would have preferred Raef or Simon (he was stitched up). Lee’s a grafter though.
It was wrong that Lee blatantly lied on his c.v. and it does send out a wrong message to reward him but then again does anyone really believe that Claire made £8 million for her company - as a buyer? Or that she earns 85K? I imagine she would be extremely disruptive in any workplace.
I would have been more upset if Claire or Alex had won - both very cocky and supercilious. Claire always had a very smug look on her face.
June 18th, 2008 at 11:59 am
I think Sugar picked the teams on purpose he knew that he would hire either Claire or Lee, so it was a safe bet to put them together… I also think the roulette idea was shocking what a bad add - why is it whenever they do any filming it looks like a cheesey 70s or 80s clip.