According to our recent online survey, the majority of people (more than 3 in 4) believe that the Vegemite iSnack 2.0 naming and subsequent plan to suddenly change it by parent company Kraft, was nothing more than a ploy to maximise exposure for the new product.
The BCM poll, which elicited the opinion of over 1250 respondents, indicated that more than 75% of participants believe that it was a carefully crafted media publicity stunt. This is despite a statement from Kraft specifically denying this was ever their intention.
The survey was conducted because many industry insiders were debating whether the name was a cheap grab to gain publicity. We thought it would be interesting to know what the public thought.
We now know that overwhelmingly people considered it a stunt. Blogs and forums all over the internet were abuzz with people saying the name must be a joke, that it was un-Australian and failed to connect with Gen Y – the very audience it was designed to appeal to.
In this environment consumers couldn’t believe Kraft could have got it so wrong. They concluded it must have been a carefully planned tactic to maximise publicity.
More than anything the study sends a clear message to marketers about the lack of trust consumers have for many brands and how cynically they view the marketing community and the lengths we’ll go to to get our messages out there.
For what it’s worth I doubt that Kraft would have been involved in such an enormous hoax. I just think it was poorly conceived and managed. And I don’t think they’re out of the woods yet. They’re currently doing research on some alternative names. The lacklustre contenders are:
VEGEMITE CHEESYBITE
VEGEMITE CREAMYMATE
VEGEMITE SMOOTH
VEGEMITE SNACKMATE
VEGEMITE VEGEMATE
VEGEMITE VEGEMILD
Alternatively, participants in the Kraft survey can decide they don’t like any of the names. Not that I expect Kraft will release detailed results, but I’m betting that the ‘NONE OF THE ABOVE’ option will win hands down.
Anyhow the new name is due to be announced on Wednesday- so stay tuned.
Kevin Moreland is a Partner at BCM
I’m with you Kev. Part of the launch activity for iSnack has been large format billboards. The signs are still up as a sad reminder of how Vegemite got it so badly wrong. I doubt that they would have chosen this channel of communication if iSnack was carefully planned as a short term, publicity grabbing tactic. I think good old fashioned poor management and a gross failure to anticipate the collective power of the crowd is evident here!