What happens when a company take an iconic food product, change its ingredients and release it under a strange new name.....well cries of outrage and a storm of media coverage: A marketing failure or just a publicity coup?
Kraft Food Australia produces Vegamite - a salty, gooey yeast paste beloved by millions of Australians - are still waiting for the new name of Vegamite that been questioned after a recent experiment with the country's most recognised food product...
In July this year Kraft Food started to sell jars of caramel-brown Vegamite mixed with cream cheese in the supermarkets with colored labels inviting consumers to 'Name Me'.
Weeks later filled with secrecy when the company sold 3 million jars to just a population that consists of 22 million people, Kraft Food purchased the most expensive advertising slot on the nationally televised Australian-rules football final Sept. 26 to announce its winner: Megamite iSnack 2.0.
The reaction was FIERCE!
Vegamite preachers took to the internet to hail and voice there concern about the name. Twitter, Facebook groups and Flickr posts was emerging as melting butter in a warm sunny-filled Australia. One online community individual suggested that the 27-year old designer who had submitted the winning name be tarred with Vegamite and forced to run naked through the streets of Sydney 'as retribution for his cultural crime'. Others wanted the naked lunatic to run around with signposts indicating and saying 'uStupid1.0' and un-Australian.
After four days, Kraft announced it would change the name and have another vote through a telephone poll that generated more conventional names - including Snackmate, Vegamild, Vegamate and Cheesybite, which the last mentioned won.
The controversy quickly died away for a beloved product that are used by children for sandwiches and even adults for a remedy against hangover with its rich vital source of Vitamin B, yeah right!
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