29 IT TAKES ALL SORTS
Charlie Robertson was getting worried. His pitch wasn’t going well. He had been through almost the entire Bassett’s portfolio of sweets and his potential client hadn’t seemed interested in a single one.
Exasperated, he turned round to get his last few samples, but in doing so he knocked over a whole range of his jars. The storekeeper took one look at the resulting higgledy-piggledy mixture of all the different sorts of liquorice-based sweets and much to Charlie’s surprise and great delight, immediately placed a large order for the mix.
The year was 1899 and Bassett’s Liquorice Allsorts2 were born. Orders are still pouring in.
And the moral is that serendipity can be a source of innovation. Does your innovation process allow for chance and the wild card?
2 The Bassett brand’s “mascot” is Bertie Bassett, a figure made up entirely of liquorice allsorts and launched in 1929.