Tuesday, November 03, 2009

The Anzac Cove* of Marketing?

The Australian makers of Vegemite came up with a blend of Vegemite and cream cheese and, as part of the product launch, ran a contest to name the new spread, with generally predictable consequences.

Money quote: "We asked people to vote on a name, and then we left the room and picked a name that wasn't the most popular, and that's where we lost the online consumer in particular." Gee, ya think?

The article mentions the mid-80s New Coke "debacle" repeating the myth of the latter as a failed experiment. I, and others, remain convinced that it was a carefully planned intentional failure to mask Coke's switch from sugar to high-fructose corn syrup in the original recipe.

H/t to J, a fine blogging Sheila.

*Refers to this

1 comment:

J. said...

Yeah, "He just smiled and gave me a Vegemite iSnack 2.0 sandwich" just doesn't have the same ring to it. (Bonus points to those besides Dave and JJV who got the reference.)