The Brisbane Times has a great article on the branding debacle faced by Kraft Australia after their disastrous attempt to brand a new version of Vegemite as hip and cool.
Kraft recently introduced a new Vegemite product that combines the taste of the wildly popular spread with cheese. The company asked consumers to name the product and received 48,000 entries – a great turnout and a lot of publicity by any stretch of the imagination. But the winning entry – “iSnack 2.0” – quite frankly sucks. Vegemite is to Australia as Apple Pie is to America – ubiquitous, democratic, and classless. A staple in every home. Passionately defended by Australians abroad, as it seems they are the only people on earth who can stomach the taste of the stuff. So to seemingly reinvent Vegemite at all seems a little odd, and to reinvent it as a hip new product is a bigger stretch yet. The name fails because, as Brisbane Times writer Helen Razer says, Australians see through the “attendant branding blitz” and see the product as it truly is.
Kraft’s idea to solicit suggestions from the public is a great one, as the nearly 50,000 new name suggestions would attest. Kraft had an even better idea when they quickly decided to bow to public pressure and cancel the iSnack 2.0 name. Kraft now plans to re-ask the Australian public for name ideas; based on the passion exhibited by people upset with the iSnack 2.0 name, I am willing to bet the company will receive more than 48,000 entries this time. Kraft will also ask Dean Robbins, the graphic designer who came up with the name iSnack 2.0, to “contribute ideas to the redesign of the product.” This is a brilliant move by Kraft and hopefully one that sees more success than their original contest.
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Good read. Personally I found Vegemite disgusting but those Aussies over there are literally raised on it from birth. I still have a an old jar of Vegemite in a box of old Aussie stuff… right along with my Brisbane Broncos rugby jersey!