Marmite is to the English what Vegemite is to we Aussies and when you meddle with the original trouble is often not too far away.
Enter the UK spread’s latest incarnation, Marmite Dynamite, which, as the name suggests, comes with a good whack of chilli added to it.
To cajole Marmite fans to its new range, the brand has unveiled a suite of ad and PR stunts alongside the tag line “Love it. Hate it. Be careful with it.”
One of the iterations is an outdoor campaign in London which features a giant billboard of the new spread with the lid having been blasted into the windscreen of a car nearby. Other executions feature huge lids blown skywards and hooked onto nearby buildings and trees.
The campaign’s the work of creative agency Adam&eveDDB, in partnership with Mindshare and experiential agency Kinetic.
One British media site going so far as to describe the OOH stunt as “one of the outstanding efforts of the past decade”.
Marmite Chilli is only available at UK grocery chain Sainsbury’s and only for a limited, six-month period. It retails for £3.99 ($A7.12), a good £1.29 ($A2.30) more than your bog standard variety.
And it’s not the first time the spread maker has dabbled with the recipe. Previously, Marmite had added XO, Champagne, Guinness, peanut butter and cream cheese to its traditional spread, all with limited success.
Commenting on the work Ben Tollett, group ECD at adam&eveDDB said: “Unilever asked us to blow the doors off their Marmite Dynamite launch. We were delighted when they agreed to blow the lids off instead.”
Fikerte Woldegiorgis, marketing director, Foods at Unilever UKI, added: “Marmite has always divided the nation, but our new limited-edition Marmite Dynamite promises to really shake things up with a taste explosion that hardcore Marmite lovers have been waiting for. Dynamite is the perfect combination of mouth-watering Marmite and fiery chilli. Are your taste buds ready?”
