The remaining candidates were selling electric bikes – but who was in the driving seat and who got the bus home this week?
Lord Alan Sugar continued on his quest to find his next business partner on The Apprentice 2023 tonight, and while some candidates excelled in this week’s task, one unlucky entrepreneur had to pack their bags and say goodbye.
Tonight’s episode of the BBC One competition saw the remaining contestants take on an advertising challenge – coming up with a marketing campaign for a new brand of electric motorbike.
If you didn’t see the episode and don’t mind a spoiler or two, catch up with our recap video above.
Episode 5 saw Lord Sugar gather the remaining 13 candidates and challenge them to create an advertising campaign for a brand new e-bike, with the task of creating a billboard, a commercial and a pitch to a panel of experts.
Over on Team Apex, Marnie Swindells stepped up to become project manager with the aim of targeting petrol-heads with their product.
Meanwhile, for Team Affinity, motorbike enthusiast Bradley Johnson volunteered himself to lead – however his proposed name of Caf-E Racer was not received well by the rest of the team.
He chose Shazia Hussain to be in charge of the billboard team due to her media background, and together with Avi Sharma and Joseph Phillips, they came up with the name Zip Zap instead.
Over on Marnie’s team, they decided to name their brand Soldier, giving it the tagline, “Ride dirty, drive clean,” for a “sexy” feel.
It was up to Shazia’s team to cast an actor for the advert, which would be filmed by Bradley’s sub-team, however they picked someone who didn’t know how to ride a motorbike. This meant that Bradley had to step in and star in the advert himself.
Over on Apex, the rest of Marnie’s team wasn’t pleased with the branding of Soldier, commenting that it didn’t properly communicate the e-bike brand.
The teams then headed to meet the panel of experts, who critiqued Apex’s advert, labelling it as “clichéd”. However, that criticism was child’s play compared to their takedown of Affinity, with one expert saying that the name Zip Zap was “dreadful”.
Back in the boardroom, Lord Sugar declared Team Apex to be the winners, describing Affinity’s performance as “diabolical”.
Bradley chose to bring Shazia and Avid back in with him and while Lord Sugar was disappointed with Avi for picking a terrible name and criticised Bradley for not sticking up for his own idea, it was Shazia who was fired for “producing a load of rubbish”.
With just 12 candidates remaining, the line-up have a lot to prove if they want to speed ahead in the competition and it’s getting even tougher as they’re flown out to Dubai for the next task.
The Apprentice continues on BBC One and BBC iPlayer next Thursday at 9pm. If you’re looking for more to watch, check out our TV Guide and Streaming Guide, or visit our dedicated Entertainment hub.
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