The Apprentice Series 4 began airing on 3 October 2011. ''The Apprentice: You're Fired'' presented by Anton Savage also returned.
Candidates The fourth series consists of sixteen candidates in total again this year. In the three previous series, the candidates were initially separated into two teams based on gender. This year, however, Bill split the teams into 'youth' and 'experience'. Four male and four female candidates made up the teams.
Weekly results : The contestant was hired and won the apprentice : The contestant won as project manager on his/her team : The contestant lost as project manager on his/her team : The contestant lost as sub-p.m. on his/her team : The contestant was on the winning team : The contestant was on the losing team : The contestant was brought to the final boardroom : The contestant was fired : The contestant lost as project manager and was fired : The contestant resigned and left the apprentice
Challenges Week 1 •
Task scope: To create and name two healthy sandwiches from the
Spar deli menu and select two flavours from the Vit Hit drinks to complement your diet meal and the team that achieves the most sales wins. •
Zest project manager: Maurice •
Spirit project manager: Aisling •
Results: Zest won the task, as they made the most sales. They made a profit of €266, compared to Team Spirit who made a measly profit of only €19. •
Winning team: Zest •
Losing team: Spirit •
Sent to boardroom: Aisling, Christopher and Conor. •
Fired: Aisling, for weak management and for allowing "chaos to take over".
Week 2 •
Project managers: Joanne (Zest) and Christopher (Spirit) •
Task scope: To produce a CD and design the newspaper ad campaign, the sleeve and poster. 100,000 copies of the winning CD would be given away free with the
Irish Daily Mail. Each team had to pick 10 new Irish music acts to feature on the CD. The team whose CD impresses the panel of judges the most wins. •
Result: The judges were most impressed with Zest's CD and they won for the second week in a row. •
Winner: Zest •
Sent to boardroom: Christopher, Louise and Yinka •
Fired: Yinka, for making poor decisions that adversely affected Spirit's project, and for "overseeing a disaster" in her team's position despite having management experience.
Week 3 •
Team reshuffle: Eugene and Joanne moved to Spirit, Conor moved to Zest. •
Project managers: Bill appointed: Eoin (Zest) and Louise (Spirit) •
Task scope: To create an app for Uni Slim. •
Result: UniSlim found Team Spirit's app to be more suitable. And chose them as this week's winners. •
Winner: Spirit •
Quit: Eoin, after Zest's presentation, he left the competition claiming his teammates ruined everything and couldn't handle the stress anymore. •
Sent to boardroom: Sandra (deputy PM), Ruth, Claire. As deputy PM, Sandra had to choose two candidates to come back with her to the boardroom. •
Fired: Ruth, for lacking assertiveness within her team that could have changed the task's outcome, and only showing it at the most inappropriate moment: during the team's pitch itself. Bill also emphasised disappointment in the assertive issue as a result of Ruth's work background requiring those character traits.
Week 4 •
Team reshuffle: Louise, Eugene and Peter move to Zest, Maurice and Claire move to Spirit. •
Project managers: Noel (Zest) Claire (Spirit) •
Task scope: To demonstrate and design "A Show Your Business Event" for
Bank of Ireland. To source local producers and their products and set up the event in Wexford and Galway. •
Result: Bank of Ireland was most impressed with Zest. They said there was "no comparison" between the two events. Zest made a profit of over €600 and won the task. This was the last time that Zest won a task. •
Winner: Zest •
Sent to boardroom: Claire, Christopher, Susanne •
Fired: Claire, for limiting the scope of her team's project, and therefore its chances of success, as a result of a desire to adhere to her self-admitted "nobler motives". It is worth mentioning that before the final boardroom scene, Claire had struggled to pick two people, saying she would go back in on her own. In addition, after Claire was fired, Bill said he "wasn't done yet" and strongly implied that a double firing would take place: but eventually allowed Christopher and Susanne to return to the house.
Week 5 •
Project managers: Bill appointed: Conor (Zest) Brian (Spirit) •
Task scope: To create an original advertising concept encouraging customers to make their homes more energy efficient with the help of
B&Q. And to present the concept as a billboard, which must contain a slogan or tagline relevant to energy saving with B&Q. •
Result: Spirit won the task. Though their billboard was "simple" and Brian's management was quite poor, B&Q thought Zest's was too complicated and too old-fashioned. •
Winner: Spirit •
Sent to boardroom: Conor, Eugene and Louise •
Fired: Louise, for not showing the fighting spirit she brought to the boardroom scenarios within the tasks themselves, and for being on the losing team in the majority of the tasks involving marketing, despite her background.
Week 6 •
Team reshuffle: Susanne and Joanne move to Zest, Noel and Sandra move to Spirit. •
Project managers: Eugene (Zest) Sandra (Spirit) •
Task scope: To relaunch the
Cadbury Dairymilk variant Caramello. To create a new packaging design for the Caramello wrapper and to develop a new print ad campaign to support the relaunch of the product. •
Result: Spirit won the task. This task was based on sales. Ultimately, the team with the most sales won. Zest sold €716 worth of bars and did not make any sales in the pre-arranged meetings set by Bill. Spirit sold €16,517 before the meetings and their total profit was over €53,000! ("A boardroom record", acclaimed Bill Cullen). •
Winner: Spirit •
Sent to boardroom: Eugene, Conor and Peter •
Fired: Peter, for showing lack of attention to detail and making a tiny yet critical error that Bill believed led to the failure of the task.
Week 7 •
Project managers: This week Bill gave the teams one minute to decide their project managers. They chose Joanne (Zest) Maurice (Spirit). •
Task scope: To develop a
Guerrilla marketing campaign to communicate
Eircom's eMobile's unlimited offering. To present the campaign in the form of a video that has the potential to go viral. •
Result: eMobile felt that Spirit completely understood the brief and therefore were this week's winners. •
Winner: Spirit •
Sent to boardroom: Joanne, Conor, Susanne •
Fired: Susanne, for her inconsistency at showing assertiveness and strength in tasks, and for continually failing to deliver in tasks relevant to her work background.
Week 8 •
Team reshuffle: Conor and Joanne move to Spirit; Sandra, Chris and Brian to move to Zest. •
Project managers: Sandra (Zest) and Noel (Spirit). •
Task scope: To create an event which engages the local community which recreates the magic unique to our local pub and which inspires consumers to raise Guinness together. •
Result: Guinness felt that there was a 'Wow' factor standing outside the pub in County Cork, but although their idea needed work Guinness will sell up the 'legend' concept, so Spirit were declared the winners. •
Winner: Spirit •
Sent to boardroom: Sandra, Brian, Christopher •
Fired: Brian, as Bill felt that he was a coaster.
Week 9 •
Team reshuffle: Maurice and Noel moved to Zest; Eugene moved to Spirit. •
Project managers: Joanne (Spirit) and Chris (Zest) •
Task scope: To create a back-of-box Kelloggs' Cornflakes fundraising campaign in aid of the National Children's Cancer Ward (St. John's Ward,
Our Lady's Children's Hospital, Crumlin), along with a radio advertisement to enhance funding for social facilities targeted toward adolescent inpatients at the hospital •
Result: Although the board of directors at Crumlin Children's Hospital deemed Spirit's radio advert "disturbing" and unnecessary, Spirit's "Walk a Mile in My Shoes" campaign concept appealed to them greatly. On the other hand, Zest's radio advert proved acceptable and quite favourable by the BOD; however, their back-of-box campaign design was considered too cluttered and more child-friendly than adolescent-appealing. The BOD also didn't quite empathise with Zest's "Starsearch" concept, and so the latter team were deemed this week's losers. •
Winner: Spirit •
Sent to boardroom: Christopher, Noel, Maurice •
Fired: Christopher, primarily for being so-called "bedazzled" by Sandra during the entire task and failing to recognise her apparent faults throughout ''' *Episode dedicated to the memory of Hannah Bryan (1996–2011, former inpatient of Our Lady's Children's Hospital Crumlin) who appeared briefly in the programme.'''
Week 10 •
Project managers: Eugene (Spirit) and Maurice (Zest) •
Task scope: To create a 30-second advertisement in order to communicate the benefits of ordering takeaway food online. It was also important that the advertisement was edgy, fun and contemporary but most importantly was that the team's personalities show throughout the advertisement •
Result: While both advertisements were disappointing, Zest's was memorable for all the wrong reasons and Spirit tried to cram too much into theirs. However, Spirit were declared this week's winners by the skin of their teeth. •
Winner: Spirit •
Sent to boardroom: Maurice, Sandra and Noel •
Fired: Sandra, for not pushing her ideas in the group strong enough and for her abrupt communication style. Although she had good oration skills, Bill felt that she hadn't shone in other areas.
Week 11: semi-final •
Team reshuffle: Conor moved to Zest and Noel moved to Spirit. •
Project managers: Conor (Zest) and Eugene (Spirit) •
Task scope: The first part of the task was to sell Renault vehicles to Corporate Ireland. They had to choose three vehicles from the Renault range and convince the fleet buyers that Renault is their #1 choice for 2012. They also had to hold sales meetings with two of the leading higher drive companies and they had to host a corporate event at one of their dealerships. The second part of their challenge was to select a number of used cars, to market them through BeepBeep.ie, which was launched in 2010 by the Society of Irish Motoring Industries, to sell them and to make a profit. •
Result: Spirit made a profit of €3,491,000 from their sales and so were declared this week's winner •
Winner: Spirit •
Sent to boardroom: Conor and Maurice •
Fired: Conor, for making a bad presentation in front of the leading drive companies as well as having a poor management style. Even though Bill admired his entrepreneurial qualities and told him that he is and would make a great role model for the youth of Ireland, he saw him as a very raw talent and ready to fight for what he believes in, but decided he wasn't going to go into business with him.
Week 12: Finale •
Task scope: The final four candidates had to undergo a series of interviews (with David Bloch, Mairead Fleming, Gavin Duffy, and Sheena Cleesey) before presenting their business ideas to a room of potential clients •
Who was Sent to boardroom: All candidates •
Fired first: Maurice, for proposing an unrealistic
business plan that ultimately required an investment much greater than Bill was prepared to offer. •
Fired second: Joanne, because of her obscure business plan that seemed too good to be true by Bill's advisors. •
Who was runner-up: Noel, for having another business whilst planning to launch another, and also because Bill saw him as a "quiet man" throughout the process. •
Who was hired: Eugene, for coming up with a business proposition that represented his expertise as an auctioneer. ==2010 series==