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The Apprentice 2014: Lauren Riley fired after soft drinks marketing task

Lord Sugar said he was yet to see the solicitor shine

Wednesday 19 November 2014 23:00 GMT
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Lauren Riley is fired from the Apprentice 2014 in week seven
Lauren Riley is fired from the Apprentice 2014 in week seven

Lauren Riley has become the latest casualty of the Apprentice boardroom.

Lord Sugar chose to send home the solicitor after she found herself in the bottom three following team tenacity losing this week’s soft drinks marketing challenge.

Project manager Mark brought Lauren and Daniel back into the boardroom, but Lord Sugar chose to eliminate Lauren citing “instinct and gut feeling”.

This week’s task saw the teams divide into two as one sub team headed for New York to pitch a new soft drink to advertising executives while the other team stayed in London to create and brand the beverage.

Team tenacity’s concept and campaign for soft drink Aqua Fusion was branded “dull, dull, dull” by Lord Sugar.

The Amstrad founder, who has never chosen a lawyer to win the competition, said: “Lauren, you’re obviously a very smart person in as much that you’re a solicitor, but I’ve heard from Nick and Karen that you do tend to stand back a little bit.

“Last week I remember saying to you that I haven’t seen anything from you, and here again, this week I’m hearing that all you did was acted in the film and you didn’t do much else again.”

Lord Sugar told Mark he made a “fatal error” by sending the wrong members of his team to New York.

“Two bloody lawyers, you stick in front of a bunch of marketing people. Dull, dull, dull, and whether you like it or not, [Daniel] can talk, so maybe he should have come over and done a bit of pitching,” he said.

He warned Daniel he needed to prove himself to survive another week in the process.

“Daniel, you say you wanted to prove something to me, you haven’t proved anything really. You keep saying you’re a great salesman, I haven’t seen you sell anything. You keep saying you’re a great presenter, I haven’t seen you present anything.”

The Apprentice continues next Wednesday at 9pm on BBC1.

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