Last week on The Apprentice television show in the UK, two teams had to design a box of tissues and come up with a telly ad TV advert to catch the attention of consumers.

This week I’ve decided to run a similar competition in which a chief executive has to woo his customers with a short e-mail or a letter. My two finalists are Vikram Pandit, chief executive of Citigroup, and Johnnie Boden, founder of the upmarket mail-order clothing group.