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In the good old days when TV spots were cheap and Colgate-Palmolive seemed to have an unlimited budget, a style of advertising emerged under the banner of, “It’s so bad it’s good”.
Mrs Marsh broke the piece of chalk 20 times a night for a year and the campaign worked.
Do we have a new version of the same idea emerging in the digital world?
Is iSnack 2.0 so bad it’s good? A better name would not have produced 1/1000th of the buzz online. They’re probably looking for it on supermarket shelves in Nome, Alaska.
Kraft is now looking for a replacement name and dubbing iSnack jars a “Collector’s item”. Although they claim innocence, it may be one of the decade’s greatest sampling successes.
How about the Microsoft advertorials or whatever they are? Tutorials perhaps?
I suspect they are so bad they’re good – but for Microsoft or Apple Mac? But, again, lots of free buzz online.
In this extraordinary age of hyper word-of-mouth it is certainly a very good idea not to suck. But are we seeing a new, weird, counter position with the slogan, “Don’t suck … blow.”
UPDATE: BCM recently ran an online poll asking whether Kraft’s Vegemite’s iSnack 2.0 disaster was “a carefully crafted media publicity stunt” or “a poorly planned, unintentional marketing fiasco”. Of the 1,274 respondents, 77 percent said they thought it was a carefully crafted media publicity stunt. You can read more about the poll results here.
Bill Bristow is Managing Director of the BCM Partnership. His interest in computers and computing goes back to his early hobby as a software reviewer and contributing editor of Macworld.
8 Comments
steve sherlock
October 2nd, 2009 at 12:17 pm
its obviously generating a lot of press and wom, if that translates into sales over a longer period, then you’d have say its worked.
but somehow I dont understand, are they having two vegemites now, the orginal and new new? if thats the case then i think it’s likely to lead to brand dilution once the buzz dies down.
like VB normal and VB light beer. when i aske for VB i mean VB! and dont want to be asked “is that light or heavy?”.
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Grant Smith
October 6th, 2009 at 2:26 am
I just hope the brains trust at Kraft did this on purpose, because it would be a crying shame if this brilliant, globally-recognised story (yes, it’s made news here in the UK) was an accident.
When the last jar of 2.0 makes its way meekly from the shelf at Woolies and onto eBay…maybe then we’ll know. And all those collectors of Duff Beer can clear a space in the poolroom.
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Helen Pereira
October 6th, 2009 at 5:31 pm
Well it’s a Catch-22 isn’t it? If Kraft takes the credit for “a brilliant marketing stunt” they still risk losing a portion of previously loyal buyers who feel duped. If they don’t, we will all keep shaking our heads in disbelief, that such a brand could be managed so badly. And then there’s a third group who’ll think “isn’t it great that they listened to the consumer?”
I quite like the stuff, but I am just as happy to put regular Vegemite with ricotta myself, thanks and not pay the extra for Kraft to add the Philly…now THERE’S a product that has been added to, reduced, enlarged, downsized and even sent to heaven – but it hasn’t changed it’s name!
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Dennis Lundin
October 6th, 2009 at 5:44 pm
No, I do think the marketing department believed this was a good name, when have marketing people ever been smart!
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Paul Ryan
October 6th, 2009 at 10:28 pm
I find it implausible that the marketers in charge at Kraft Australia would sign off on such a risky publicity strategy in an attempt to achieve cut-through. Even if it had worked (I think we’re all agreed it hasn’t/won’t), the strategy was just too edgy for a big, risk-averse corporate like Kraft to embrace.
This is more reminiscent of the hit-and-miss stuff of young, hungry guerrilla marketers just out of uni with something to prove and nothing to lose, though they tend to have better taste.
You know you’ve erred when Daryl Somers is scoring points off you.
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Helen Pereira Reply:
October 7th, 2009 at 9:48 am
Paul, I agree. Not necessarily the young guerillas – I think there are some old ones lost in the jungle for years who’ve come out wanting to be hip.
One day someone will tell!
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Grant Smith
October 8th, 2009 at 8:24 pm
Is it really that risky though? I mean, New Coke…but to this day we all still drink Coke, and happily get fat and toothless doing it. Or last year’s Commonwealth Bank “American ad agency” series that John Singleton was such a fan of. Vegemite’s never going anywhere, and if the new product completely tanks, it’s still the most publicity the brand’s had in years.
There’s a phenomenon among big corporates that I like to think of as the Branson Effect. That is, every marketer and their boss wants to be cool, edgy and loaded (like Sir Richard)…but they want to be Richard Branson NOW. Not Richard Branson 25 years ago smoking pot, living on a houseboat and hanging out in recording studios, fighting the good fight etc. Can’t we still hold out hope that just maybe, somewhere in some corporate marketing department, there’s still that fighting entrepreneurial spirit? Surely they’re not all working at Anthill
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Steve Sherlock
October 8th, 2009 at 9:34 pm
i’ve got scientific proof that all the neh sayers are vwrong.
here it is: i havent had vegemite my fridge for over two years, shopping last night, now i have to jars. (old & new!!!!) and the shelves looked ravaged!!!
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