Vegemite’s cheesy name
With nearly 50,000 names submitted, including the inventive Wow Chow, Ruddymite and 2ritemite, Kraft Australia has named its new Vegemite spread, wait for it … iSnack2.0. WTF? The winning name came from 27-year-old Dean Robbins, a web designer (no kidding).
Responding to a demand for a spread that did not need butter, Kraft relaunched Vegemite in June this year with a creamier texture and held a competition to find a new name. It still looks and smells like the old Vegemite but is more spreadable. How? They added cream cheese!
So iSnack2.0 is a poo-coloured, dairy-fat laden spread for the new generation – mmm, tasty.
The new name was announced during half time at the AFL final in Melbourne on Saturday. By the end of the game iSnack2.0 was a dirty word on Twitter (see #vegefail) and Australian blogs are full of it too, crikey.com.au is a goody. Who cares that the Geelong Cats won, iSnack2.0 is getting all the press.
Kraft Foods head of corporate affairs Simon Talbot defends the new name, saying it “was chosen based on its personal call to action, relevance to snacking and clear identification of a new and different Vegemite to the original. We believe these three components completely encapsulate the new brand.” And even if people don’t like the name, “fundamentally they like the new product”.
More than 2.8 million jars of the stuff has been sold since June.
Is the new name so bad it’s good for publicity? Will one taste turn me into a web nerd touting html code in an annoying Aussie accent?
But wait, there’s more!
100's n 1000's
September 29, 2009
Yuck!!!! sort of reminds you of things like strawberry flavoured Coke…
Debra
September 29, 2009
This has to be the most public evidence ever that consumers should NEVER be asked to make marketing decisions! They can tell us what they think – but that’s meant to be the input, not the output!
troy
September 29, 2009
Debra, you’ve got it wrong. Kraft were the dumbarses to chose this lame name from 1000s of entries. If Kraft had really embraced the spirit of 2.0 they would have let the public decide — and got the right name.
Trust the wisdom of crowds!
David MacGregor
September 29, 2009
Loving the Kraft marketing guy’s bullshit rationalisation. #marketingspeak …fail.
Duncan Stuart
September 29, 2009
Which reader can’t think of at least 3 good reasons why this name is no good. Here are four:
- Fad. (Will date badly.)
- Typographically nasty. Do we include the 2.0? Will the supermarketing joutrnals need a style guide to even talk about this sub-brand?
- Spoofable. Learned this in student politics. Never use a brandname or slogan that can be easily spoofed or corrupted.
- Breaks the golden rule of cool by trying too hard to be cool. Hey kids – Kraft has still got it! Yeah…
We’re talking semantics if we argue over whether the public got it wrong or whether Kraft is the culprit for relying on the public.
What matters now is how some poor sod of an agency is going to make this sub-brand fly. The world is full of brandnames that we’d never choose in hindsight – but miraculously many of these are huge successes.
While I’m rambling: My favourite brand name of all time is Kodak – invented because the founder of company simply liked the sound.
Fiona
September 29, 2009
Incredibly bad taste….the name and the product.
Vincent Heeringa
September 29, 2009
Perhaps we ought to be more ‘umble. There are quite a few predicted brand failures that ultimately were successful:
Always misspelled: AC Nielsen and Ernst&Young
Impossible to spell or say: Xerox
Most fun to spoof: Wang
Most ridiculed: Zespri
Just stupid: Mindfood
And then there are some brands that just never should have been:
Nissan Cedric
Nissan Laurel
Nissan Bongo Wagon
Not to pick on Nissan, but they are also responsible for the Datsun 120Y probably the worst car ever to drive at high speed around Upper Hutt.
Jules Brown
September 29, 2009
Just want to add to Duncan’s 4 reasons why this brand name will die:
No. 5: It completely ignores Kraft’s customer: Mums. I’m not saying Mums don’t use iThings, or know what Web 2.0 is. I’m saying that iStuff and Web 2.0 are completely and utterly irrelevant to the act of purchasing a jar of Vegemite mixed with Cream Cheese, a product their kids might enjoy.
I give it 12 months before they either change it or the product totally flops.
Annabel McAleer
September 29, 2009
No way is the name ever going to take off. Worst thing about it is that “iSnack 2.0″ could describe anything edible (and retarded), there’s no association whatsoever with a flavour, an emotion or even a place or person. It’s completely devoid of character, which even Nissan Cedric has got.
Australia can definitely have Vegemite back now.
Kevin T
September 29, 2009
Is it April 1st? This is a joke, right? Even Kraft aren’t that stupid….. What’s wrong with chessiemite or similar?
I’ll start buying Marmite again.
Matt
September 29, 2009
it is ironic, surely?
Mari
September 29, 2009
iDontlikeit.
But I guess all the multiple future product variants have their way paved for them with 2.1, 2.2, 3.0… What’s the next fad flavour? Kiwi fruit? Garlic? Bacon? Brrrh…
Daniel Thurston
September 29, 2009
Further to Duncan and Jules:
- it doesn’t sound like food, let alone remotely appetizing.
Seriously, does anyone want to ingest something that sounds like a computer application? (Though perhaps it contains iFibre?)
Rob
September 29, 2009
Debra above has it right. Customer feedback should be used as input not output. If Richard Branson had asked the public, what should I call my new ariline? How many would have said Virgin? None I’d wager. Apple don’t go out and ask their customers what they think of the new ipod design. No Steve Jobs figures that out to the smallest detail. Sorry Troy, you don’t know too much about marketing
troy
September 29, 2009
I may know little about marketing, in a traditional sense that’s true.
But then Web 2.0 is knocking traditional marketing for six faster than Jesse Ryder reaches for the Smirnof.
In the new marketing, the customers own the brand and the crowd is a source of wisdom.
If Kraft had let us (the interested mob) do the choosing, there’d be no embarrassing iSchmuck or whatever it’s called.
Debra
September 30, 2009
I think the wisdom of crowds is over-rated (and yes, I have read the book)… crowds are made up of people, and there are really far too many stupid people in the world! Let’s not forget that crowds by another name are rioting masses, engaging in lemminglike behaviour… This name was not the result of the wisdom of crowds anyway – it’s one person’s idea that someone at Kraft thought was just so cooool…
Rob
September 30, 2009
Would you like a job Debra…ha ha. Troy you just sound like your rehashing any number of articles written in the mainstream media about web 2.0. guess that is what crowds do – they follow.
Anyway Kraft – genius campaign, you’ve got the crowd talking! They’ll be thrilled with that. will that translate to sales when the buzz passes and their left with a really crap name for a food product….who knows, lets see
Duncan Stuart
October 1, 2009
Well, well, well gang. The new Vegemite got dumped today and there are now a few thousand “collectable” jars of the awkwardly named iSnack 2.0. On the BBC today, Kraft have officially backtracked and withdrawn. back to the wisdom of the crowds – the public outrage over iSnack was just too big to ignore. There was a popular suggestion that the web developer who came up with the name (in jest, he now claims) should run down Pitt Street smeared in nothing but a good rich layer of original Vegemite 1.0.
Matt
October 2, 2009
obviously a marketing set-up at this stage – looking forward to the reveal
Rob
October 2, 2009
Love it, now that’s marketing 2.0