Last Sunday on Channel 4, a man called Eric Nicoli proudly remembered ‘the bravest thing I’ve ever done’. In November 1975, Rowntree was poised to launch the Trek chocolate bar. The packaging was ready, along with an advertising campaign featuring, for some reason, potholers. But as the company’s new product manager, Eric couldn’t rid himself of the niggling feeling that Trek was boring. So — and this is the brave bit — he went to the boss and said that Rowntree should think again. ‘You better be bloody right, young man,’ the boss replied. And with that, Eric returned to the drawing board where he came up with the name Yorkie and an advertising campaign featuring, for some reason, lorry drivers. ‘The rest,’ he duly told us, ‘is history.’
This was The Secret World of Chocolate: a programme that owed much of its considerable entertainment value to a winning lack of perspective.
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