The keenest readers among you may remember an old MZ blog post applauding the social media strategy of Marmite. Well, those purveyors of yeasty goodness are back, and they’ve done it again.
This time, to hype the launch of their new extra-strength spread, Marmite XO, they recruited a secret cult of devotees through social media sites. Just 200 bloggers, fans and fanatics were welcomed into ‘The Marmarati’, having proved their worth by uploading Marmite-related photographs, videos and poetry to marmarati.org
The lucky few were then given limited-edition hand-made jars of the new Marmite XO and, wouldn’t you just know it, all of a sudden the web was awash with rave peer reviews – just in time to whet the general public’s appetite for this week’s big launch.
It seems apt that a product which has long marketed itself on an ability to divide opinion should take so naturally to social media – which has itself proved more than capable of polarising opinion.
But for those who are yet to be won over by social media, Marmite has showed that any brand can feel the love – as long as they play smart. The brown goo’s success in the social space isn’t by chance. Their ‘love it/hate it’ campaign inherently encourages the kind of debate that fuels effective social media marketing. And, by rewarding their most partisan brand advocates with exclusive freebies, they’re giving the chattiest, most enthusiastic, and most relevant voices on the web an endless supply of blog fodder.
It all adds up to a brand you can’t help but love. Even if you hate the taste.
Charlie Thorogood is spreading the love.
Personally I love it – and the Marmite (boom boom!).
The goo may be suspect, but the strategy’s spot on.
Nice use of the word ‘Partisan’ Chaz! But did it get you the callibre of freebies scored by writer of said ‘old MZ blog post’? I miss her.