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What do you get when you take an iconic food product, change its ingredients and release it under a kitschy new name, prompting cries of outrage and a storm of media coverage: A marketing failure or a publicity coup?

The executives at Kraft Foods Australia, the company that makes Vegemite — the salty, gooey yeast paste beloved by millions of Australians — are still awaiting the answer to that question after a recent experiment with the country’s most recognized food product went awry.


It all began in July when jars of caramel-brown Vegemite mixed with cream cheese began appearing on supermarket shelves with brightly colored labels inviting consumers to “Name Me.” After weeks of secrecy, during which the company sold more than 3 million jars of the new product to a population of just 22 million people, Kraft took an expensive advertising slot during a nationally televised Australian-rules football final Sept. 26 to announce its winner: Vegemite iSnack 2.0.

The reaction was fierce. Vegemite-loving consumers took to the Internet to voice their collective indignation about the name. Thousands of Twitter posts, at least a dozen Facebook groups and a Web site dedicated to “Names that are better than iSnack 2.0” blasted American-owned Kraft for tampering with an Australian icon.



One online commentator suggested that the 27-year-old designer who had submitted the winning name be tarred with Vegemite and forced to run naked through the streets of Sydney “as retribution for his cultural crime.” Others called the name “uStupid 1.0” and “un-Australian.”

After four days, Kraft announced that it would put the name back to a vote.

This time, it put forward six rather more conventional choices — including Vegemate, Snackmate and Vegemild — from which Cheesybite was elected through an online and telephone poll. The controversy quickly died away.


Australians are passionate about Vegemite. Travel almost anywhere and you are likely to find an Aussie with a tube of the brewer’s yeast extract stashed in his bag. Babies are weaned on it. Schoolchildren eat it on sandwiches. Adults revere it as a hangover remedy, a vital source of Vitamin B and a staple breakfast food — spread lightly on hot buttered toast.

“Australian food was really bad until the 1970s: boiled meat and vegetables without any butter or salt. Vegemite was one of the things that actually had any flavor, and that’s why it became so incredibly popular,” said Bill Granger, well known Sydney chef and the author of several modern Australian cookbooks. “It’s one of the only foods that is unique to Australia, and people see it as being quintessentially Australian.”

Similar versions of the product exist elsewhere. Britain has Marmite, for example, but many Australians consider that an inferior substitute.

Even Mr. Granger, who spends part of each year in London, said he always kept a supply of Vegemite on hand for his children.

Simon Talbot, the head of corporate affairs at Kraft Foods Australia, said the company had taken only 72 hours to decide that the iSnack 2.0 name was “not worth defending,” given the level of outrage.

But the furor was already paying dividends: Sales of iSnack 2.0 rose 47 percent during its first two weeks with the name, while sales of the original Vegemite were largely unaffected. (Jars with the Cheesybite name will appear on shelves only after Kraft unloads about 500,000 jars printed with the iSnack 2.0 name — in two or three months).

“In the first week, we were in 15 percent of Australian households, which is unheard of. It usually takes many months to get that sort of impact,” Mr. Talbot said. “Time will tell the success of the product, but to date, the lack of cannibalization of the core product and the level of new uptake indicates that we’re onto a very, very successful winner for us.”

“We asked people to vote on a name, and then we left the room and picked a name that wasn’t the most popular, and that’s where we lost the online consumer in particular,” Mr. Talbot said of the iSnack name. “The underlying success is that we got the mix right: We got the taste right, we got the insights right. The sales data proves that.”

That success has led some to wonder whether the campaign was a carefully crafted publicity stunt; a postmodern rehash of Coca-Cola’s failed 1985 experiment with New Coke, which ultimately served to reinforce consumer loyalty to that brand.

Kraft denies the claim, though Mr. Talbot did concede that the extra attention might have prompted some shoppers to try the product.

“I don’t think that the executives, particularly at a big multinational like Kraft and particularly with Vegemite, would be that risk-taking,” said Paul Harrison, a marketing professor at Deakin University in Melbourne. “When you think about risky marketing or publicity stunts that do happen, they don’t have this kind of underlying threat to the profits of the company.”

Whether the strategy was intentional or not, Gerry McCusker, who has written a book on public relations disasters, believes Kraft’s experience with iSnack 2.0 will become a useful case study in using controversy to “cut through the clutter” of the marketing space.

“Kraft has turned a fairly pedestrian product launch into a matter of public pride and public ownership and affinity for the Vegemite brand,” Mr. McCusker said. “That’s what today’s media thrives on: the conversations, the open expression of opinions, the love, the hate, the passion — and we’re talking about a jar of spread.”

Both Kraft and the marketing gurus agree that the long-term success of the product formerly known as iSnack 2.0 will depend on a simple question: Is it good?

“If people like the taste of it, they’ll keep buying it — if they don’t, they won’t,” Mr. Harrison said. “Ultimately, you don’t want people thinking too much about your brand, you want people to become habitual about

G'day Charles,

Thanks for the question, mate. Human psychology fascinates me.

LOL! The article is more or less accurate and the story is a testament, in my mind, to the age old advertising dictum that any publicity is better than no publicity.

As a teacher, I frequently encountered situations in which students basically decided that any attention was better than none. "I can't understand the academic work or get any attention by attending to it, but I sure can get the teacher's attention by pushing his/her behavioral buttons." Of course, usually even the student was unaware of what they were doing. It was all subconscious. My answer was to prevent rather than remediate the situation by deliberately cultivating a meaningful relationship with every student in my class based on their strengths and interests, not on their weaknesses and inabilities.

Mind you, it should be noted that Bill Granger is a RV chef, and as such does not qualify for membership of the species! Australian food in the 70s was probably a bit plain and mostly seemed to consist of meat and three vegetables most of the time, but this little black duck has never consumed boiled meat! (Why would you when you can clog your arteries by frying, grilling or roasting?

These days, Australia is very cosmopolitan and, like your country, includes folks and cuisine from all over the world. Good Aussie tucker includes not only your steak and eggs, but your sausages and eggs as well!! We can tuck into great and typical Australian dishes like pizza, sweet and sour pork, spaghetti bolognaise, lasagna, Thai food, nachos, tacos, seafood ... the list of authentic Aussie tucker is endless. (I bet they don't have this stuff anywhere else! LOL!) We do eat more than Vegemite, steak and chips and pavlova. But we do eat Vegemite!

I have no idea if Kraft set out to deliberately choose the crookest name possible, but that's what they seem to have done. Personally, I probably wouldn't try their new product even if they gave me a jar. I have no need of it. I have a jar of Vegemite in the pantry and I have cheese in the fridge. I think I can pretty much cope without somebody combining the two products and calling it progress. I think there is every chance, mate, that Kraft did deliberately choose a really crook name knowing that it would be the most effective way of raising awareness or their new product. According to the article it seems to have worked because any new sales seem not to have been at the expense of sales of the flagship product.

I am very cynical toward and wary of marketing people. My buyer resistance rings the bell most days. I buy products only if I need them and I know the marketer's job is to make me believe I need them. They'll even advertise in such a way as to make folks think they are neglectful of their kids' needs if they don't buy a certain product! What a crock!

Nope. On the rare occasions that I turn on the TV and actually turn to a commercial channel, I tune out when ads are on. It amazes me when people not only notice them but actually choose to discuss them and respond to them. If I notice an advertisement, it is usually because it is weird or annoying, in which case, I make a mental note to avoid that product like a plague rat.

I have not seen the new Vegemite product, nor have I seen an ad for it. I have read two online news articles about it. I don't read newspapers or watch TV news, which seems to be rather sensationalist and editorial, I read online news services and listen to one or two radio news bulletins on most but not all days.


Now, the important bit:
If you are going to try Vegemite, get it right!

To the uninitiated it will seem that Vegemite consists mostly of salt and battery acid and that may well be so. Who cares. It's a beaut snack.

Lightly toast some thick sliced wholegrain bread.

Spread it liberally with butter. (Avoid margarine and other substitutes. The claim may be that they are healthier for your circulatory system but what did your arteries ever do for you? Besides, the spreads that reduce the onset of heart disease probably do you in with cancer anyway. Given that you have to die of something, you might as well enjoy your snack in the meantime!

Lightly spread the Vegemite fairly sparingly over the butter. The aim is to have the whole slice of toast pretty much soaked with butter and Vegemite.

Consume this antipdean delicacy with your favourite beverage: tea, coffee, whatever.

Repeat until your completely understandable cravings for said delicacy are satisfied, or until your steak is cooked.

Many Australians will include Vegemite on toast as part of their breakfast. I tend to have a dingo's breakfast or at most a very strong black espresso coffee in the morning, but 11pm may well find me in the kitchen, reaching for the Vegemite ... but not stupid iSnack 2.0!! (What a dopey name!)

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Grahame Edwards,

Your mate in The Land Down Under,

Grahame.

Carpé diem "y'all"!

edwards.grahame@gmail.com


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The name reminds me somehow of the stuff that Lucy Ricardo sold on one of her TV shows!! Don't think I have ever seen any of that stuff... But there isn't much I don't LIKE!!!

Honestly the only reference to vegemite that I've ever heard was from an 80's song from a group callled "Men At Work" Who's "Land Down Under" had a line that said "he just smiled and gave me a vegemite sancwich! LOL I don't get out much! thanks for the info Grahame!

G'day Patsy, Tom, Charles and "y'all",

I am not a rich bloke (financially speaking, although in relationships and life experience, I am a millionaire). Being an ex-teacher, I count my blessings that I didn't have to raise my family on a park bench. I have never been able to travel overseas, although I enjoy documentaries about other countries, especially the people and am a sucker for Lonely Planet guides.

I have met and made friends with overseas tourists (mostly from the U.S., Canada and Germany) and have invited many to my home or to see some sights with me. I love meeting people and haven't found many duds in all these years. They all have a story to tell.

I have found, especially with new friends from North America, that the safest way to introduce them to Vegemite is to blend the stuff with butter and whack it on a savoury cracker like paté. That way the flavour is cut a bit and doesn't assault your trans-Pacific taste buds as much.

So, there we are, sitting at the Bluff (15 minutes from Chez Edwards) looking either south to rolling hills covered with eucalypt forest and not a man-made thing to be seen as far as the horizon, or looking east over the vast coastal plain that is largely covered by the greater city of Sydney stretching 40 miles to the sea with the high rise development of the CBD on the horizon and stuffing our faces with a variety of snacks (including your Vegemite "paté and washing it down with chilled white wine, ice cold beer or whatever and wondering what all the poor people are doing ...