Oddly enough, I just picked up a jar of Marmite recently, not having tasted the stuff for literally decades. I love the stuff, but I can understand why others might hate it:
When it comes to evoking passionate debate British brand Marmite has proven controversy can help build buzz and sales. This brown savory spread made from yeast extract has an incredibly distinctive flavor. 15 years ago Marmite’s own “Love It or Hate It” campaign evolved out of a difference of tastes among the creative team at DDB London. One loved the brown, savory spread and one hated it. The campaign’s longevity and fame reflects the fact that even in its country of origin, the brand’s strong taste is “challenging.” (Few Americans can even stand the idea of Marmite and it is questionable whether many Brits would if they had not been introduced to the taste as children.)
[. . .]
The “Love it or Hate It” campaign brought to an end five years of stagnating sales and a weakening brand and led to sustained, penetration-led growth of around 5% each year for the next five years.
When sales once again started to slow in 2002 the campaign idea proved flexible enough to help revive the brand’s fortunes once again. The campaign was enlisted to introduce a new, “squeezy” container and extend usage to sandwiches. Messing with a much loved brand is never easy, but astute brand management involved ardent fans with the relaunch and enlisted another British icon, Paddington Bear, to bring the brand back to growth. In 2010, the brand spoofed the British elections. Love and Hate parties battled it out to either build a shrine to the brand or rename it “Tarmite.”
The fact that people are so passionate about the brand (for or against) means that Marmite’s “Love It or Hate It” campaign is a natural fit with social media. According to Contagious Magazine, some 200,000 fans were already on Facebook as self-declared Marmite lovers long before the official page was launched in 2008.Today the brand has a fully fledged social media presence with over 500,000 people liking the brand and 182,000 liking The Marmite Hate Party (Dedicated to Stop the Spread of Marmite by reducing, and ultimately terminating, its production and consumption).
Damn. Now I’ve gone and made myself hungry . . .
