iSnack 2.0 - Marketing FAIL

Australians (mostly) love their Vegemite. People from other countries think we're mad. The American Arj Barker says in his comedy skit that he has tried it, and he thought it was very nice. The only slight suggestion he could offer was perhaps it needed just a BIT more salt ...? Which was his way of saying it is so salty it could strip your vocal cords.

[I don't know why I said that. Of all people, I should know that food you swallow doesn't head down near your vocal cords. It just sounded funny to say that. "Eat some Vegemite and you could lose your power of speech." Ha ha.]

I think the problem encountered by visitors from overseas is that they spread it too thickly. You can't go slathering the stuff on like Nutella. Just scrape a trace of Vegemite here and a trace there, you're done. That's plenty.

That's a pretty decent amount, on that crusty bread. This would be getting a bit too thick in places:

...and you HAVE to take it out to the corners, for Pete's sake.

But this would be far too much:

It looks like they've wiped that on with a shaving brush in the dark.

And this much on a cracker could pretty much knock over a horse:

So don't do that.

Now please remember that some Australians like their Vegemite THICK. Please understand that that is their preference. They are seasoned (pun?) Vegemite Eaters, having completed years of training (de-sensitisation?). Thick Vegemite is not for the faint-hearted, the hypertensive, or the foreigner. Okay?

You may have heard that recently, the marketers of Vegemite came up with something new. A different recipe, supposedly milder and with less ZING, that would hopefully appeal to the overseas market.

I believe it's Vegemite mixed with Cream Cheese. But here, we see the law of food mixing evident: I like custard and I like balsamic vinegar, but I don't like custard with balsamic vinegar (I am just assuming here.)

I like potatoes and I like ice-cream, but I don't like potatoes with ice-cream.

I like dark chocolate and I like mustard, but I don't like mustard on my dark chocolate.

I like Vegemite and I like cream cheese, but the new recipe isn't doing it for me, nor is it hitting the spot for eight-ninths of Australians.

For a start, it's a pukey brown colour. It's the colour of an animal poo. All Australians know that's not right. Vegemite is supposed to be the colour of axle grease. Only then is it right.

Our inability to embrace the new product was heightened with the naming fiasco. "Take it to The People," some dull boffin suggested across the conference table, after hours of unproductive suggestions for a NAME for their new product.

Never do that. We can't name stuff. We don't want to name stuff. It's YOUR job, what are you paid for, Marketing?

So they sold a whole lot of THIS:

and asked the Australian People to suggest a name.

48,000 entries were received. An estimate of the Australian Population at July 2008 was 21,007,310. Sounds about right. We are, among other things, a nation of bludgers, and it only seems appropriate that 0.22% of Australians bothered to suggest a new name. I didn't, for one.

However, 48,000 is a lot of suggetions, and one would think that in that massive pool of responses that SOMETHING could be found to whack on the label of this new animal-poo-looking spread.

It might surprise you that this was the best they came up with:

Okay, okay, pull yourself together. It's no laughing matter. It's really quite embarrassing for all Australians.

Long story sort, Australians HATED it, absolutely HATED it, and the dull boffin and his friends had to rename it. They came up with:

which is obviously two sandwiches short of the more obvious "Cheesymite" but by this stage, after a few months being called "Name Me" and an ignominious week as "iSnack 2.0, snicker snicker," the new product can't expect too much.

A few are touting the whole debacle as a raging success by Kraft, because Australians have been talking about this like they've never talked about a New Spread before.

While this may be true, the reason we've been talking about it is because we award the boffins at Kraft a whopping great MARKETING FAIL.

... in love, obviously.