Lord Sugar’s wannabe business partners find themselves in a lather in Thursday’s episode of The Apprentice as they create and brand their own shampoo.
The 17 remaining candidates join Lord Sugar at the cactus room of London’s Barbican Conservatory and are tasked with also creating a digital billboard and 30-second TV advert alongside branding that highlights the shampoo’s USP – cactus seed oil.
It’s back to girls vs boys (Boundless/BBC)
The teams, switched back to girls vs boys, were also told they would have to pitch their product to industry experts before Lord Sugar – their 'prickly customer' – decided who would get the chop.
Salon owner Charleine Wain went head-to-head with hair extension entrepreneur and inventor of a heated hair bun, Aisha Kasim, for leadership of the girls, but Aisha’s experience won out.
The boys selected Richard Woods, director of a digital marketing agency for eight years, but who Baroness Brady branded as like someone who had 'bought a management book and read it cover to cover before coming here'.
Brett takes a leading role (Boundless/BBC)
Brett Butler-Smythe suggested the tagline, 'Live life rough then make it smooth', while Scott Saunders struggled with both the spelling of cactus and desert. They eventually settled on the name 'Western – for Desert Dry Hair'.
Taking their cowboy shoot-’em-up suggestion lightly, Joseph Valente put his gardening skills to good use by utilising a bucket and watering can for the boys’ soapy billboard shoot.
Over on the girls’ team, dictatorial Aisha accepted her team’s plan to target the 'grey pound' or over-50s market, but hired two unsuitable 20-something models for her billboard campaign.
Claude was little help in the shampoo brainstorming sesh (Boundless/BBC)
Luckily good sport Ruth Whiteley was willing to get into the spirit of it as she became the face of 'Desert Secrets' and their cactus-flower bottle.
Inevitably, when the other half of the teams tackled the TV adverts, their brand continuity went from bad to worse.
And a dry pitch from one team and a tongue-tied delivery from the other had industry bosses wincing as nerves took over.
Find out who had more than just a bad hair day in episode two of The Apprentice at 9pm on Thursday, on BBC One.
