Francesca Kennedy Wallbank was fired on The Apprentice on Thursday evening, despite being tipped as a front-runner, as the business-minded candidates were tasked with creating their own computer game.
The Diverse team - led by Brittany Carter - ended up in the boardroom as they created a game demo called ‘Artic Saviour’, misspelling the word ‘Arctic’.
In the fifth week of the BBC business competition, Lord Sugar summoned the candidates to the entertainment complex Samsung KX in London.
Lord Sugar told the eager hopefuls that for this week’s task they would face the challenge of creating a game demo along with a character for their game, before pitching their concept to a panel of established games investors.
Half of each team oversaw the branding of their new game, while the other half of the team oversaw the design.
Losing team Diverse decided that, with the over-saturated market of warfare games in mind, they would put a sustainability message into their game.
Their character Sam the scientist was tasked with collecting penguins and seals from the frosty Antarctic landscape, but during the branding process the candidates made a dire blunder and misspelt the word ‘Arctic’ in the name of their game.
When the teams returned to the boardroom at the close of the episode, Lord Sugar learnt that sub-team leader Francesca had written the word ‘Arctic’ as ‘Artic’ in her notepad and the game’s logo had been mocked up with the misspelling as a result.
Lord Sugar quipped: “At least we now know why Santa has never responded to your letters.”
He added: “We all know about global warming as something that’s got to be taken seriously, but this is a game which was supposed to be interesting, funny. It’s not supposed to be pitching a cause.”
Board member Karren Brady told Lord Sugar: “The investors said there’s simplistic and then there’s simple. And on that basis they didn't make any investment at all.”
However, Franscesca insisted the failure of the team came down to the game’s concept as opposed to the name - she also said nobody else picked up on the misspelling of the name.
Yet as Francesca, Brittany and Sophie Wilding prepared to return to the boardroom for a grilling from Lord Sugar, Karren added: “When you can’t spell your own brand name properly, you know you’ve got a problem, because the investors just thought they’re not across the detail.
"Francesca has to own that because she was sub-team leader and really was directing everything.”
Lord Sugar concluded: “As the weeks are going by, I was hoping to see some cream rising to the top. I’m not at the moment.”
