It was a result we could not have predicted. Flanked in the boardroom by front-runners Liz and Stella – surely Stuart would finally be packing his ‘Baggs’. However, when the going got tough, the Brand used his favourite strap line, ‘I’m only 21.’ As an equal opportunities employer, age shouldn’t have swayed Sugar when determining the most suitable candidate for the role, but it looked that way. Reflecting on his own rise to fame, Sugar ‘harnessed’ the blabbermouth, though it is a decision he will struggle to objectively justify.
The teams were tasked with winning over London’s tourists by selling them open bus tours (aka dipping into their ‘juicy money bags’). Synergy, led by Joanna, offered ghost tours featuring budding historian Jamie as its tour guide. Come on Jamie, is the Thames really the second largest river in London and is Big Ben really 20 diameters in width? Misrepresentation aside, his cheeky charm secured him £67 in tips. Meanwhile, Apollo attempted to woo tourists in the form of a ‘real’ cockney tour around the East End. Corporate Stella may have had all the facts and even the Pearly King in his whistle and flute, but she failed to win over the punters, making only £8 towards the coffers.
The day before, in an apparent moment of madness, Chris agreed to give away 20% of Synergy’s total sales revenue in exchange for marketing from a tourist agency (a deal Joanna tried to renege on by claiming Chris had acted outside his authority). Despite Apollo’s attempts to solicit customers away from Synergy with aggressive tactics that not even injunctive relief could have curtailed, it was the overpriced pitch to the agency that left Apollo stuck in the slow lane. To compound matters, as Chris told Stuart (not so politely) to get lost, Stella actually was, leading her paying tourists to a dead end rather than jellied eels.
So Chris’ gamble paid off as Synergy’s profits soared and victory was assured (easy to label him shrewd after the event, Sugar). All the horrors of the day were forgotten, including Joanna and Jamie’s almighty stand-off. Her nagging management of Jamie proved too much as his frustration boiled over and Joanna issued him with a sex discrimination ticket.
As Synergy were treated to oysters in Jersey, Liz received a glowing appraisal from Sugar in relation to her sales technique. However, her one trick pony proved to be no match for Stuart’s field of horses. Will Stuart make the cut in next week’s infamous interviews? His past appraisals and 360 feedback from his peers suggest not. However with his gift of the gab, something tells us we ain’t seen nothing yet.
Ray Wann is a media lawyer at Sheridans