A specialist automotive centre in Basildon hosted Lord Sugar in this week’s episode of The Apprentice.

Ford’s Dunton Technical Centre entertained the billionaire businessman in this week’s episode of the BBC One programme, in which the candidates were tasked with creating an advertising campaign for the brand new Ford Fiesta.

Richard Beard, Ford of Britain’s marketing manager judged the two team’s campaigns on the programme.

He said: “We were delighted to host Lord Sugar and The Apprentice at the Dunton Technical Centre and to work with them on the advertising task, providing two brand new Fiestas and setting the scene in our design studio facilities.”

The two groups were presented with the new car straight out of the Ford factory.

The teams drew up their original ideas inside Dunton, where the two campaigns were based on very different markets. One team focused on young women for the car, whereas the other took to targeting families.

The teams were taken to the engineering centre where Lord Sugar, alongside Karen Brady and Claude Littner, explained the task to the teams.

Lord Sugar said: “You would need to create a TV advert and design digital advertising screens that will grab the attention of London underground passengers.

“Launching a new car is really really tough, I would like you to think something really great up for this task.”

Mr Beard, alongside a host of industry experts and leading advertising executives, judged the groups’ campaigns after they had been pitched to.

One of the teams struggled to push their campaign due to their TV advert.

The advert, which was set inside of a model Norman village in the Essex countryside, did not prove popular with the experts.

Mr Beard said: “People may think it’s easy to create an ad campaign for the UK’s favourite car but it was a really tough challenge for the candidates and I think that showed.

“It’s so important to know the target demographic you’re creating the ad for, to have a coherent message and, of course, select the right location to shoot the ad.”

The team who aimed their campaign at young women walked away from the boardroom with the win and a trip to the world’s tallest tunnel slide at the Olympic Park.