Love It or Hate It

Every day there’s stories in the media of companies who are getting their marketing wrong, but very little credit is given to those who are getting their marketing spot on. Strange as it may seem, one of the companies who are consistently getting their advertising and marketing right is Marmite. Probably not one of the easiest products to market, but nevertheless they are constantly producing new and original ideas to market themselves.

The company traditionally only had one product to work with, one kind of spread. To remedy this, and create some buzz, the company has introduced a Marmite chocolate bar, Marmite cheese, Marmite flavored crisps and biscuits, and even an extra-strong version called Marmite XO. Some of these products have faired better than others with consumers, but all have created buzz and garnered the company a lot of media coverage.

Marmite also successfully jumped on the back of the general election, creating their own campaigns and voting system based on their two parties, The Love Party vs. The Hate Party, tying in with their strap line of “you either love it or hate it.” They launched a dedicated website, press and advertising campaign, and social media profiles for the two party leaders. They then encouraged people to vote and announced the winner online.

Marmite succeeds where others fail because they clearly never stop thinking about their next move. Every campaign they run has an original idea at its core, but is backed up with advertising, social media, and PR. And everything ties in with their now traditional line “you either love it or hate it.” For the lovers there’s an ever increasing range of Marmite flavored products, and for the haters there’s a hate group on Facebook (started by Marmite themselves.) Marmite is even engaging with people who confess to hate their products, and how many other companies are doing that?