Marmite’s new ball
Dr Mumbo hates to be cynical, but the Ashes sledging between Vegemite and Marmite is starting to look more like a brand collaboration than a beef.
As readers will recall, the first advertising shot was fired during the first test by Vegemite, which challenged the move by Marmite to give out free samples to Aussie fans. It ran the following ad in UK tabloid newspaper The Daily Mirror:
The reference to Steve Smith’s redemptive double centuries drove the sort of PR coverage that Dr Mumbo is sure is already being edited down into a two minute Thinkerbell awards case study.
Since when did cricket fans stop readind The Times, Guardian and Daily Telegraph and start reading the Daily Mirror. Or just the cheapest option before you hit the depths of the Daily Star?
Marmite just hit the Vegemite ad for 6. Quite average copywriting at best on the Vegemite one.
The vegemite ads might be OK, there again they might be seen either as crass or simply as a joke, either way, it is not the desired effect.
The Marmite jar and label are streets ahead in terms of design and aesthetic appeal, the contents are simply the old sardine v pilchard argument, on which the jury has been out for around 80 years.
As for the choice of newspaper, the Daily Mirror is probably about right.
Marmite is meat based, Vegemite is vegetable – read beer yeast’ – based so they are comparing non identical products. At another level Marmite is a continuation of the savage behaviour of the caveman brought up to now to the same society that still has fox hunts and shin kicking as legitimate pastimes. Whereas Vegemite consumers have moved on to the much less barbaric comsumption of processed beer yeasts which has the flow on advantage that there is plenty of beer available while the steaks are cooking on the barbecue.
Plus Vegemite is full of sunshine.