How Marmite and Unilever re-kindled love for its brand through polarisation.

1. Rich and
Strange:

2. 4518145, Dara Bell, Page 2 2/11/12
How Marmite and
Unilever re-kindled
love for its brand
through
polarisation.
The Marmite brand was almost 80 years old at the
time of Unilever’s revolutionary campaign. The
middle classes, who had once been in love with
Marmite, were not buying it. Marmite is in fact
gluten free, high in B vitamins and is vegetarian
friendly. It's quite unique or different but the 'Rich
and Strange' weren't buying it. Its also a low cost
choice for mums to feed several children cheaply
but they weren't buying it either. The weird unique
(almost hippy) message wasn't cutting through in
the messaging. This in what Jack Trout and
Al Ries referred to as the 'Positioning era' by Ries

3. 4518145, Dara Bell, Page 3 2/11/12
and Trout (1981). I'd label the audience they
needed to reach as 'Rich and Strange'. These were
middle class, ethical and almost picky about what
they eat. This is the story of how DDB re-framed a
tired brand using clever differentiation.
“ In order to be irreplaceable one must be
different.”
Coco Chanel
Marmite is owned by Unilever. The company saw
the opportunity to create a cult around the product’s
weirdness through a polarisation strategy. It's a
unique product in a product category all on its
own. It's what makes it unique as a brand. We’ll
look at this more deeply later. Marmite is made
from brewers yeast. It's black and sticky and can
stain children’s clothes, actually quite easily. On
its own its enough to polarise and can be regarded
as strange!
Marmite when DDB took over the brief had only
minority appeal. Polarisation was not radical it was
a 'do or die' moment. It had no ‘Otaku’. ‘Otaku’
refers to the few brand advocates who are the key
to making a story move. In modern Japanese slang,
the term ‘Otaku’ means 'obsessive geek' but it
refers to the overall effect too. They cross over with
a group sometimes called 'loyal sneezers' according

4. 4518145, Dara Bell, Page 4 2/11/12
to Seth Godin, see 'Spreading The Idea Virus'
(Godin, 2001). They are the people who support a
football team after its winning streak is over.
Furthermore Marmite had no cult around its
product. Cults usually form for lifestyle reasons
and a shared experience. They are often collections
of 'obsessive geeks' with very very very loud
members interspersed by the 'sneezers' as Seth
Godin calls them. They form for either LOVE or
HATE reasons, which are often emotional.
There are rituals too. If we look at Harley
Davidson or Camel Lights who have and have had
many cult members. The loud members are the
Advocates ('Sneezers') for the brand of which
Marmite's had none. For both these brands these
‘sneezers’ are exceptionally loud. Advocates make

5. 4518145, Dara Bell, Page 5 2/11/12
noise according to Seth Godin in Unleashing The
Ideavirus (Godin, 2001). For Harley this meant
accountants dressed in leather who drove through
their towns like Hells Angels.
Marmites' 'loyal sneezers' in 1996 weren't
'sneezing' anymore i.e. spreading (sorry about that)
The Marmite story around. At a certain point there
is 'tipping point' at which point the messaging
is stickier but we must create these conditions.
There were no proponents of Marmite LOVE and
no word of mouth or the market penetration that
creates sales. The louder the more, I feel, useful for
the process of information transfer and dispersal.
It's a win-win for the advertiser and the consumer
cult.
DDB chose to highlight the positives and the
negatives, which is quite a strange strategy.
Collins Dictionary describes a polarising as this
"To cause to concentrate about two conflicting
or contrasting positions".
They had to look at the product from a fresh and
less hackneyed way. This therefore became
the basis of DDB's creative brief. The creative brief
would have examined the following. The questions
for Marmite were these. Why were people not
shouting/talking about Marmite? Could we
communicate and position differently? Are we

6. 4518145, Dara Bell, Page 6 2/11/12
talking to the right people? We'll see how
originality and creative flair was priority number
one, later on too.
Unilevers' Marmite troubles were set to a booming
cable television market and a healthy commercial
broadcasting sector, especially at ITV and Channel
4. Opportunity existed in other places too. For
students and stay at home mums, who are in the
'Rich and Strange' market there was
the mushrooming Internet. The breadth of
mediums in fact was staggering, when you think of
radio, television and ambient. Full media
integration was then an imperative to deliver this
new message. Unilever wanted people taking
about Marmite everywhere and on many
platforms. The cult had to be formed around the
new technology too.

7. 4518145, Dara Bell, Page 7 2/11/12
Let's look at the new technology. The Internet, if
we look at it in more detail and use Geoffrey
Moore's adoption lifecycle, had entered a new
phase of evolution. In Crossing the
Chasm Moore (Moore, 1999) identifies a
'technology adoption cycle'. Moore identified
early adopters, early majority, late majority and the
laggards. The Internet was between the
majority and laggard stage. It had 'crossed the
chasm' in the UK. The Internet, as a platform, in
the target markets of the UK and South Africa
was entering majority use at 25% in the UK. It was
more laggards in South Africa.

8. 4518145, Dara Bell, Page 8 2/11/12
The tipping point in Moore’s' 'law of diffusion' is
between 15% and 18%. This represented a huge
opportunity in potential R.O.I (return on
investment) for DDB London. Consumers’ media
habits were changing, as were eyeballs. This had
become a sizeable audience that was untapped. If
we did a SWOT analysis of Marmite as a business,
right over, we'd see they had a huge opportunity
using a full range of mediums. Unilever had not
moved with these new technological habits and
mediums. So DDB and Marmite were the laggards,
as Geoffrey Moore would say.
Furthermore Unilever had no web cults around its
strange product. If we look at a book like The
Cluetrain Manifesto (Levine et al, 1999) it says

9. 4518145, Dara Bell, Page 9 2/11/12
consumer cults form around new technology. The
book focuses on how consumer cults use
technology. On the messages that move through
our email, web pages and chat and bulletin boards
about our products and services- it's
collectivism. The consumer cults messages can kill
or make a brand. The new strategy then had to
move easily and create a halo effect, especially
with people who only make a decision when their
friends move, capped at 18% for Moore. (Moore
1999)
However, mediums weren't the key issue for the
new campaign. Marmite was considered tired and
dated by consumers. This we might call a threat to
the brand. It's also conversely opportunity, as we'll
see later. The messaging wasn't sticky enough
(sorry!). It had to stick and it had to move.
As a story, the Marmite story wasn't unique enough
to tell to others. Polarising at its core essence was
about creating division among consumers
and disrupting them. Unilever in the 90's had only
apathy. There wasn't even HATE for Marmite.
Marmite fostered brand agnosticism. Tackling
agnosticism then was far more important than the
changing mediums or embracing the breadth of
media options. There was no compelling hook, no
story and nothing to divide and conquer. By devide
and conquer I mean focus on ‘Discursive

10. 4518145, Dara Bell, Page 10 2/11/12
repetition’, over the disambiguation of the
product’s meaning in the mind of the consumer.
Key I feel was a credible anchor to achieve this
reframed meaning.
Nothing about 'My Mate Marmite', the existing
campaign, was sticky (sorry). Specifically it hadn't
created top of mind awareness or the word of
mouth we talked of earlier in the execution of the
campaign it featured soldiers marching at a
barracks. DDB sought to change this
problem through re-framing product perceptions.
The existing focus highlighted the uniqueness of

11. 4518145, Dara Bell, Page 11 2/11/12
the packaging and it had the tagline 'My Mate
Marmite' and an overall Everyman voice. It frankly
wasn't unique anymore. The mis-en-scene was all
wrong and the song sounded almost like a jingle
too. No emotion and no feeling equaled no
connection. DDB, the agency in charge, shifted
emphasis to the uniqueness of the product itself.
The re-brand started with a truthful flavour (sorry)
to the advertising. This honest-about-the
-product isn't a new idea. David Ogilvy said in
Confessions of An Advertising Man (Ogilvy,
1967) that advertisers must "Make the product
the hero of your advertising". DDB achieved
these through dramatically re-framing perceptions

12. 4518145, Dara Bell, Page 12 2/11/12
with just the facts. This re-brand began with
focusing squarely as David Ogilvy had said on the
product itself- on the ingredients! (The concrete
aspects in other words).
By building the cult around the brand's new image
around acute needs for time saving and lifestyle
needs of vegetarians and the gluten free D.D.B
could cut through a whole new market. Same
product different demo. The new target audience
was pushed for time, health conscious, they
were ethical and they were picky (the strange)
about their ingredients. Targeting this new
audience group was then a 'fitter' idea. 'Memes' or
ideas evolve by natural selection in a process
similar to that of genes in evolutionary biology.
(Lynch, Aaron. 1998) What makes an idea a potent
'meme' is how effectively it out-propagates other
ideas. Thus playing on ego and lifestyle and the
acute needs of mums- they did this. It's a 'fitter'
idea and appeals too more needs.
These needs come from the left hand of Taylor’s’
Model (Taylor 2001). These are often referred to as
the transmission view of communication.
Combining multiple needs creates an idea that out
pro-gates others. It makes it stickier and
it transmits more easily. The new campaign,

13. 4518145, Dara Bell, Page 13 2/11/12
which we’ll look at now, had surprising speed and
effectiveness because of these new uncovered
needs (Taylor 2001).
DDB created two ads one HATE and one LOVE to
emphasis the weaknesses/differences. Youngme
Moon said in her book Different (Moon, 2001) that
the creation of the hero and anti-hero idea was the
key to this brand's success. Youngme sights
Marmite and Ikea as really cultivating their
differences and having success from that
cultivation. The second Hate ad knocks the B
vitamins, deliberately highlights that strong flavour.
We'll look at both ads in full later in the execution
section. HATE cultivates the differences and draws
light to them. Both adverts together have an
'informational' pull effect not a push effect. You’re
pulled to know more about Marmite. Polarising
then creates conversation and encourages the
forming of cults around the brand.

14. 4518145, Dara Bell, Page 14 2/11/12
"One thing these brands have in common is they
have nothing at all in common." Youngme Moon
(Moon, 2001) points out about Marmite and Ikea.
They are 'Outliers'.
Marmite and DDB make the product the hero in
their execution. Ikea does this through actively
cultivating differences too. IKEA have dozens of
great products combining visual merchandising
excellence and the 'Swedish experience' and
strange products. They strip back or skimp on taken
for granted services like lots of salespeople,
customer service reps etc. The emphasise their
point of difference. As brands they are unique as
they are in a product category of their own. Stores
are difficult to find! Marmite and IKEA- if we
wrote a business plan for each- marketing them as
new businesses - would be in a product category by

15. 4518145, Dara Bell, Page 15 2/11/12
themselves.
There's no competitor for Marmite! It's in crowded
spread category but in terms of yeast spreads there
are only two in the world. I guess that doesn't
mean much today but compares Marmite to say
Colgate and we see Colgate has 34 toothpastes and
excluding the 3 for children. This then lowers
brand equity.
If we look at what Colgate have to do for people to
take action it's tantamount to coercion or
manipulation. The equity is then raised in finding
differences. Abandoning conventional

16. 4518145, Dara Bell, Page 16 2/11/12
selling creates unbelievable loyalty. There wasn't
then one key to success but many. Uncovering the
uniqueness, making the product the hero and
moving with the technology trends all worked for
DDB. Discovering the anti-hero was what made
the new campaign really sticky which we'll look at
now. In Made To Stick (Chip and Dan Heath, 2007)
say 'simple ideas are the stickiest' and I'd say
returning to my evolutionary arguments they
propagate fastest. The anti-hero idea has to be one
of the simplest but yet potent strategies in our
business and I'd like now to dig deep into the DDB
chest to tell you more.
There isn't anything new to this type of uniqueness
positioning but its distinctive emotional note is
relevant as is the rhetorical and visual devices.
William Bernbach with his original Volkswagen ad

17. 4518145, Dara Bell, Page 17 2/11/12
changed the game with its zagging. 'Think Small'
was his tag line for this tiny car. Again this is a car
in a category of one. It's again the 'Rich and
Strange' idea again for the 'Rich and Strange'
audience. It targets readers of the New York Times,
Boston Globe etc. Rich for me is about the
audience, creative execution and the choice of
mediums. This caused Bernbach to target
broadsheet newspapers in largely urban areas.
Really this was the only small car you could buy in
America in the 1960's. Most Americans in the
1960's wanted big gas guzzling cars. To them -
small equaled unpopular and feminine but the
Strange didn't care they wanted arty and fuel-
efficient.
Volkswagen was very very very different. William
Bernbach again following the logic of my 'Rich
and Strange' argument and made the car the anti-
hero of his campaign. Look at the white space and
the tag line it creates a pull. (Art and Copy Film,
New York 2009) The anti-hero spin gives it just
that little bit of uniqueness and sheds light on the
true essence of what a polarization strategy is. It's
really a tone of voice and certain irreverence. It's
also as much about the excluded as the included.
When it comes to the effects on the WOM (Word
of Mouth) detractors still 'sneeze'.

18. 4518145, Dara Bell, Page 18 2/11/12
More recently, returning to IKEA, IKEA created its
own HATE experience. IKEA has no comparison
with Habitat or any other interior design shop. If
we were to advertise IKEA we'd focus simply on
the meatballs, the cafe serving the 'Strange'
Swedish food, the Swedish shop. The Audience’s
need for choice and expression mater a lot.
Moreover they address acute and lifestyle needs
through a huge range of products, parking, and
child friendly spaces for mums. Catelogues talk in
a Strange/ liberal way.

19. 4518145, Dara Bell, Page 19 2/11/12
So what then is the HATE experience?
The assembling of the furniture then represents the
HATE experience. The anti-hero must be found, as
it’s the disguised opportunity. For IKEA the HATE
experience is the assembly of the furniture. If we
look at the company website it's packaged as an
adventure. It's woven into the overall 'experience'.
Specifically the assembly is part of modern man’s
rite of passage. Overall to differentiate in a
Creative Brief for an IKEA campaign, I’d be
looking very closely at the overall experience.
We'd include the shadow aspect' see p. 284 in
Process” The Archetypes and the Collective
Unconscious (Jung, 1996).

20. 4518145, Dara Bell, Page 20 2/11/12
In the weaving of the narrative we'd then make the
product the hero and define it all as an adventure
including the negative experience i.e assembly as
part of that adventure. Advertisements would have
a character building emphasis and an irreverent
tone not unlike modern BBH ads.
Think of black denim a BBH product and one of
BBH’s first accounts. It launched their agency and
gave rise to the black sheep which is now the BBH
logo. John Hegarty says “Ask the same people in
the same way. You’ll get the same answers.”
Then tone of voice is part of the art of
differentiation (John Hegarty at Cannes Lions, Sep
22, 2011). It might represent the basis of our
creative brief but for me flows from research. On
the subject of Unilever, Hegarty has said he faces
difficulty convincing Unilever to change their
approaches to Lynx another Unilever product. Re-
invention is not an easy sell to a multi-national
company. We are talking about turning oil tankers
around.
Ikea ads, returning again, might feature an
unpopular figure to the anchor a hate experience.
They'd be ego driven but perhaps cater
to consumers' specific needs as I feel 'Rich and
Strange' does. We could create negative ads about
the assembly of IKEA furniture that highlighted a
hated cultural moment or figure. Humour would be
key. The products would have to be still

21. 4518145, Dara Bell, Page 21 2/11/12
considered favorably by the public (heroically).
The execution would be very important. Compare
this to the new IKEA ads which I feel don't
communicate their strangeness/difference
effectively to the public. This is in a homogenized
and politically agnostic world. We want to create
then contrast to this world.
How the 'Rich and Strange' were hooked by
DDB?
http://www.marmite.co.uk/love/
http://www.marmite.co.uk/hate/
Click

22. 4518145, Dara Bell, Page 22 2/11/12
Each website has an accompanying TV ad and
overall execution is paramount. Each has to be as
compelling as the other. Routines are influenced
and broken, patterns re-arranged. DDB had to cut
through the other savory products in their
messaging by clever use of mediums. After all
Marmite might be quite unique but its still a very
cluttered spread category. The medium was then
the massage in the execution. That's a deliberate
misquote like the book of the same name. The
mixture of mediums creates a distortion of the
public’s perception and messes with the senses.
Strange! In The Medium Is The Massage

23. 4518145, Dara Bell, Page 23 2/11/12
(McLuhan, London 2008) felt each medium
distorted our senses and played with them. DDB
chose several mediums and having many
mediums amplifies 'curiosity gaps' see Chip and
Dan Heath again. (Chip and Dan Heath, 2007)
How did DDB actually polarise in their messaging?
The execution involves two separate ad campaigns.
With multiple media messages the product came to
life. The best ideas spread the fastest with the least
amount of resistance. The number of mediums
created less resistance and the consumer cult spread
these (sorry). The originality of this execution I
feel creates a BIGGER 'fitter' idea.
http://www.marmite.co.uk/love/
http://www.marmite.co.uk/hate/
Click
Each website in turn shows the polarisation

24. 4518145, Dara Bell, Page 24 2/11/12
strategy creates the desired pull, the need for
information and conversation. It’s mild (only mild)
use of choice architecture (Thaler and Sunstein,
2008). The basis of which for the writers of Nudge
is about having a simple proposition. A not so
simple proposition might look something like this
and could create confusion not conversation.
In the Marmite Campaign one must make a
decision to become a ‘lover’ or a ‘hater’. The re-
framed message 'Love it or Hate It' and requires
two separate campaigns to back this devision up.
The ensuing effect creates the Word Of Mouth to
build and sustain the cult indifferently. It was a
new way of working with two separate campaigns
with both ads intended to polarise and cause
chatter. Each message is inseparable to the other.
Simplicity as I’ve said is key.

25. 4518145, Dara Bell, Page 25 2/11/12
It's a ‘Kadir’, a Japanese word for to cut
through. Why was a ‘Kadir’ needed? Well apathy
and indifference and overcrowding in the overall
savory snack market. DDB knew their
polarisation strategy was the only way to cut
through this noise. This was an acute need for the
brand. They had a product with no other
competitor, in a category of its own in its UK/South
Africa markets but however no sales. Execution
needed then to remind people of the ingredients as
we've mentioned but moreover the way Marmite
could be used (see the LOVE Website below).
Packaging too mirrored the new message with
explicit vegetarian friendly and B vitamins
references. Its new Unilever packaging. To me
this added up the projects overall coherence and
effectiveness.
http://www.marmite.co.uk/love/
Click
The polarisation reminded the sceptical public of
the products uniqueness. Emphasising the
'Strange' after all the intended demographic DDB
would have looked at -are vegetarian and gluten
free loving. Many of the recipe ideas on the LOVE
website are vegetarian. They are speaking to the
'Strange'. The LOVE Campaign, looking closely
at execution, looks at the B vitamins with an

26. 4518145, Dara Bell, Page 26 2/11/12
Ogilvy informational style execution. B vitamins
were the emphasis of both ads. So we are reminded
of the health reasons for eating it. LOVE mentions
the B Vitamins. But HATE also mentions B
vitamins too- in jest. It's the same effect- we are
pulled in for a desire to know more.
DDB in the print ad below identify polarizing
characters like G.W Bush and compare Marmite to
these figures.
We'll see later that the public copies this 'Marmite
is like' thought in it’s 'sneezing'. Insert your
horrible person here. By building the cult around
the brand's new image they could cut through to
this new market liberal and picky. By picky they
are ethical and vegetarian gluten free etc. Thus
DDB played on their lifestyle needs and the acute

27. 4518145, Dara Bell, Page 27 2/11/12
needs of mums on tight budget. Overall in the
execution there was more Ogilvy-esque honesty
about the strong flavour in the hate ads.
Pepperami, which, like Marmite, is another
Unilever brand, echoed it with an unapologetically
carnivorous "it's a bit of an animal". We'd sum up
Unilever’s approach to both products at the time as
truthful positioning. Product as anti-hero and use of
an unpopular cultural figure to anchor that feeling.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=FWQqgfE1YaM
(Click)
The comedians really describing the Word Of
Mouth Marketing that Unilever had hoped for. The
conversation is now around the aspects of the
message that DDB hoped would go viral and would
spread. It's moving and people are 'sneezing'. The
ensuing dialogue made people look at their own
psyches- it makes people describe Posh Spice as
like Marmite. For an ethnographer like Geertz see
The Interpretation Of Cultures (Geertz 1973), there
is "a system of inherited conceptions expressed
in symbolic forms by means of which men
communicate, perpetuate, and develop their
knowledge about and attitudes toward life"
(1973:89). I feel this discourse has a currency for
the Advertiser. When I speak creating noise this
encapusulates playing with societies beliefs.
Marmites is now a product that people want to talk

28. 4518145, Dara Bell, Page 28 2/11/12
about and wrap their conversation around and
express deeper notions like their identity.
Next see how one big chocolate company has taken
this strategy and made it digital. It's again a’
kadir’, Japanese for 'to cut through'. Smarties have
a marketing strategy not aimed at children but
adults. This digital strategy saw Smarties market
outside of their intended demographic, which is
polarising in itself. They created a viral videos and
websites to polarize, create noise and play with
meduims. (Breakenridge and Solis 2009). Their
similar strategy involves hated public figures who
were labeled ‘stupid’. Stupid.com was the
campaigns name and departs from a required
demographic. Infact, we should question what is a
required demographic in our reframing. Stupid
proved Students were as open to Smarties as
children.
This I feel plays on ego needs. ‘You don't
persuade with the intellect' Aristotle said.
Sometimes the creation of the noise is all that
matters- creating it and maintaining it. (April
1997) In an article named Cutting through the
noise (by Winston Fletcher) Fletcher argued we
must cut through the noise with advertising that
embraces creative excellence. Angus Jenkinson
formally gave a name to the idea of ascribing
persona to products taken from the values of a
segment itself. Customer Prints were a "day-in-

29. 4518145, Dara Bell, Page 29 2/11/12
the-life archetype descriptions" that came from the
cult themselves. They are ethnographic in nature
(Chapman 2008) and means we must read the
values of a demographic/segment and implies
something unspoken.
Unilever to date has published more than three
books on wait for it 'Cooking with Marmite'. That
is creative excellence and playing with the
consumer cult that they've built. Importantly it
creates a ritual between mother and child that can
be shared. It might not involve motorcycles and
petrol but it features Horrid Henry as the
protagonist who’s equally as zeitgeist and
enthralling for them. Importantly it's right into the
right hand side of Taylor’s' model combining ritual
with transmission on the left hand side and right
hand side of the wheel. The brand is touching on
almost all buyer needs and has profitable noise.
The effects are outside of the school WOM with
free 'sneezers' thrown in, some are the detractors.

30. 4518145, Dara Bell, Page 30 2/11/12
The DDB's own Marmite polarization strategy has
been re-used in conjunction with cultural events
too. It's a phase of marketing, which I feel is really
brand management. The desired effect again is of
course to continue the strong Word Of Mouth. The
two cultural events DDB used were the British
election campaigns and the Queens Jubilee
Anniversary. Thus a reinforcement of the original
message 'Love it or Hate it' is achieved. There is a
consistency of messaging consistent with strong
branding. - congruence with the original 15 years
old campaign.
See the Marmite 'The Hate Party' video. Just
Click!
http://bit.ly/ContinuingTheStrategy
In the Web 2.0 world it's even easier to create
strong brands and to brand. We can break routines.

31. 4518145, Dara Bell, Page 31 2/11/12
More mediums further disrupt routine and disrupt
the senses as McLuhan (New York 2008) had
suggested. How? If we know people jump on
Facebook G+ or Twitter, after work, we can engage
with them there too. Thus we meet consumers
where they are. It's all about the engagement!
President Obama used social media to win his
election by mobilising millions of apathetic
Americans to vote and donate via MyBo.
'We Are Social' hold the Marmite (Digital)
account. Now that the brand has been re-framed in
the mind of the consumer it's time to further disrupt
habit. They stoke the campfire of conversation. A
recent launch of a social media campaign devised
by the strictly social media agency We Are Social

32. 4518145, Dara Bell, Page 32 2/11/12
identifies a mobilised group of 'superfans', termed
‘The Marmarati'. This proves the power of the
original polarisation strategy and maybe the
validity of the beginning of this essay. There's now
a web cult around Marmite.
It's now a cult that quite powerfully can be engaged
with. XO Marmite used qualative market
researched with real-time online dialougue.
Unilever made changes to XO because of this data.
We Are Social have already looked at all
the Marmite blogs (see above) and now they
are capitalising on the LOVE for Marmite. As we
see the uptake of social media continue this will
intensify hopefully with more direct conversation.
Expect We Are Social to monitor social media
chatter in each network. Marketing Week says the
agency will directly target with direct Facebook
ads.
How do Facebook Ads work? They monitor your
posts, timeline of media and serve you up (Sorry
about that!) Ads catered to you. In this case they
know they have a responsive audience and a cult to
address but could well work against them, as social
media is perhaps more a customer service
discipline (Hsieh, 2010). Voice or tone can be now
used to get large amounts of information over
quickly. To further increase Otaku and brand

33. 4518145, Dara Bell, Page 33 2/11/12
advocates we can listen to the word on the web
and engage with the re-framed messages. The
chatter is there to be formed, moulded etc.
To continue the reinforcement of the polarization
strategy Unilever must address the cult directly.
The cult formed around the Marmite brand is now a
commodity. Unilever has already published three
books on Marmite. The quality of the conversation
and the brands ability to create conversation is
vital.
(Just click)
http://www.ilovemarmite.com/default.asp
Seamus Waldron, the Marmite blogger, is a loud
paid up member of the Marmarati and the cults we
looked at. The cult is an online and offline cult. It's
'crossed the chasm' with its web use and is well
beyond majority use now. Seamus is in the web-
cult that D.D.B had hoped for- he is loud and
perhaps influential too. In the Web 2.0 world-
engagement is the new creativity and the noise
really counts. 'We Are Social' can play
with the 'Rich and Strange' idea Marmite online
and cater to their needs. 'Love and Hate’ can be
manipulated and moulded and be used as a social
lubricant for the Web 2.0 conversation. Crucially

34. 4518145, Dara Bell, Page 34 2/11/12
it's a conversation starter for Unilever's Customer
Service.
For a brand heading into maturity the Facebook
Ads that 'We Are Social' proposes might start the
logjam right over again. Social media is not a
place to speak to- it's a place to speak with.
Sometimes just person to person see One To One
Future. Peppers and Rogers. I see 'Return On
Customer' as Marmite's extreme differentiation,
which has been the basis of my argument. One can
handle the PR nightmares that haunt modern
companies when factories contaminate our food.
Ads don't start social media conversations.

35. 4518145, Dara Bell, Page 35 2/11/12
Remember mums, students are a huge part of this
cult and their online frequently and they are web
literate. The Cluetrain Manifesto (Levine et al
2001) says it's an opportunity to "talk and offer
service". Time will tell if We Are Social are making
a massive mistake with Facebook Ads. Syringe
transmission could destroy the potent branding
strategy we've looked at today.
In conclusion, as marketers, we must concentrate
on the product itself. We must 'Make the product
the hero' focusing on uniqueness, on the
ingredients and create recipes or applications. We
must create selling propositions that clearly make
messages different and distort our senses. We can
exploit product categories and differences the way
new businesses do.
We should uncover lifestyle needs and acute needs
and disrupt patterns with mixed media. DDB chose
a target market of the 'Rich and Strange'
-vegetarian and liberal. They spoke in their
language with their technology. They indentified
their vegetarian gluten free habits, and with their
sense of humour, and the things that were pissing
them off -example G.W Bush. They delivered truth
not happiness and created a product persona. The
breadth of platforms available to DDB had
changed- so that called for full Media integration to
distort the senses as McLuhan had said
(McLuhan 2008). They also had to blow the

36. 4518145, Dara Bell, Page 36 2/11/12
budget.
The proposition “You either LOVE it HATE it”
embodies the polarisation strategy, which I feel was
more important than, the new platform, the
Internet. This was do or die! Marmite was a unique
product in a category of its own with no sales “We
Are Not For Everyone” (Huffington Post
08/31/2012) is a recent ad campaign for the
U.S brand Miracle Whip. When you're being
referenced in your ads that's good. You created a
potent hero/anti-hero symbol. The ad was
ultimately a huge success. The product was
different and DDB London communicated these
differences with their irreverent voice and tone.
This idea,I feel, out-propagated other 'memes'
(ideas) by being simpler and more concrete and by
speaking to new a audience in a new way.
References
(Harvard System)
Aristotle. 2001 edition Aristotle's Rhetoric, 2001, LAP
Lambert Academic Publishing, Boston
Chapman, C.N., Love, E., Milham, R.P., ElRif, P. and
Alford, J.L. Quantitative evaluation of personas as
information. Paper presented at Human Factors and
Ergonomics Society 52nd Annual Meeting, New York,
NY, September 2008.

37. 4518145, Dara Bell, Page 37 2/11/12
Arwa, Mahdawi. 30 November 2011, 'Love it or Hate
It's Strong Stuff' Guardian, Manchester
Gertz, Cl,.1973, The Interpretation of Cultures:
Selected Essays. Basic Books New York
Godin, Seth. 2001, Unleashing The Ideavirus, Seth
Godin, New York, Hyperion, New York
Heath, Dan and Chip. 2007 'Made To Stick: Why
Huffington Post. 08/31/2012, “The Great Miracle
Whip Debate’, HuffPost Food Group
Some Ideas Survive and Others Die, Random
House, New York
Lynch, Aaron. 1998,The New Science of Memes: How
Ideas Act Like Viruses (The Kluwer International
Series in Engineering & Computer Science), Basic
Books, and New York
Peppers, Don and Martha Rogers Ph.D. (1993), The
One to One Future: Building Relationships One
Customer at a Time. Doubleday Business. New York
Pray, Doug. 2009 Art and Copy Film, 2009. Sony
Pictures, Culver City,
Moore, Geoffrey Crossing. 1991, Crossing The
Chasm, Harper Business Essentials, New York
Ogilvy, David. 1967 Confessions Of Advertising Man,
Atheneum, New York
Hsieh, Tony. 6/7/2010, Delivering Happiness: A Path
to Profits, Passion, and Purpose Grand Central
Publishing, New York
Taylor’s Wheel. Vol 39, 1999 Journal Of Advertising
Research, New York

38. 4518145, Dara Bell, Page 38 2/11/12
Thaler and Sunstein, 2008, Nudge: Improving
Decisions about Health, Wealth and Happiness,
Yale University Press, London
Turning into digital goldfish, BBC Sci/Tech,
www.bbc.uk, Friday, 22 February, 2002, 09:40 GMT
Ries and Trout. 1981, Positioning Battle For The
Mind, Warner Books, New York
McLuhan, Marshal. 2008 reprint, The Medium is the
Massage: An Inventory of Effects, Penguin Classics,
London
Peppers, Don and Martha Rogers, Ph.D. (1993). The
One to One Future: Building Relationships One
Customer at a Time. Doubleday Business. New York
Moon, Youngme. 2001, Different, Crown Business,
New York,
Breakenridge and Solis, 2009, PR 2.0 Smarties story
from page 2 PR 2.0 1st edition, Prentice Hall, New
Jersey
C. G, Jung. 1996, p. 284 The Archetypes and the
Collective Unconscious, Princeton University Press,
Princeton
Fletcher, Winston. 1997,Cutting Through The Haze,
Admap (WARC) London
The Cluetrain Manifesto, Rick Levine, Christopher
Locke, Doc Searls and David Weinberger. 1999,The
Cluetrain Manifesto, Perseus Books, New York