“He Just Smiled and Gave Me a Vegemite Sandwich”

I decided that I would take a hiatus from our PR Tools Blog Series and take a moment to comment on a story that I have been following since I returned from my vacation to Australia in September.

While in the land of Oz, I made it a point to try all native foods, ranging from grilled Kangaroo, Tim Tams, potato wedges and sweet chili (my favorite) and Vegemite.  Vegemite, for those of you who don’t know, is a brown, concentrated yeast spread that Aussies use as much as Texans use BBQ sauce.  Meraiah Foley of the New York Times describes the Aussies’ loyalty to the brown goo best when she said: “Australians are passionate about Vegemite.”

Weeks later I stumbled upon a post on  Harvey Chimoff’s Wonderful World of Marketing blog that focused on “the great 2009 Vegemite controversy.” The controversy Chimoff was referring to began shortly after my trip:

In July, Kraft launched a marketing campaign that called for the public to help name the new cream cheese based Vegemite spread.  According to Chimoff: “35,074 people participated; 48,243 names were entered; and of those, 16,071 names were unique.”  On September 26, 2009, Kraft announced the winning name: Vegemite iSnack 2.0.  Foley reported that: “The executives at Kraft chose iSnack 2.0 to reflect that the product had been developed using information gleaned from thousands of online surveys.”

So how did the Aussies receive this new name?  Not with open arms.  Aussies took to Twitter, Facebook and used the media to show their disdain for the name.  Four days later Kraft responded by announcing another naming contest for the formerly-known iSnack 2.0.

“A marketing failure or a publicity coup?” is the question Foley asked.  It seems as though it could have been a publicity stunt to potentially garner more international attention to an otherwise domestic food.  I cannot help but think that it may have just been poor marketing and an over eagerness to associate the spread with technology.

The marketing idea to call on the public to help name the new spread was, in fact, a great idea for two reasons.  First, it aligned itself with the successful naming process of Vegemite back in 1923 by again letting the consumer control the product and name it.  Second, the campaign succeeded in gathering public interest and drove sales of the new product.  But I would suggest that including the public might also be the campaign’s downfall.  By allowing each individual voter to submit a unique name the results became overwhelming and I don’t think Kraft’s marketing team was ready for the feedback.

But then again, maybe society just was not ready for the transition of food names from something sumptuous to something practical and overly-techy like iSnack 2.0.