Karalee,

I seriously doubt it. This is one of the most try-hard, stupid, old and irrelevant product names ever. And I thought McDonald’s user generated “Backyard Burger” from “Name-it Burger’ was lame! So clearly, these people are clueless.

And if you are completely oblivious to how social media handles #fails like this, well, you’re not really ready to respond are you? So I predict they will not respond at all, or respond with “we stand behind our decision”, and the product will be dead in 3-6 months. Trust me!

In the meantime, people like us have been given hours and hours of pure gold entertainment, seeing how these loser marketing types fuck up the simplest of tasks. It’s like a marketing ploy out of a Simpson’s episode.

Erik

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It reminds me of some sort of naming competition at the local zoo. There’s been a massive push for ‘User Generated Content’ in campaigns recently to gain more ‘engagement’ – but it’s not as if Kraft didn’t have the final say in the name. I would have expected something better. Not all publicity is good publicity – and this is awful! But at least it is true to the product attributes of Vegemite – love it or hate it!

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While I’m not convinced by the figures quoted in the original article, (they could mean all sorts of things), you’re right – this is a major PR disaster for Kraft.

I haven’t heard any social media response from Kraft yet. One common thought online seems to be that this “must” be some sort of PR trick to get attention and announce the real name later. My guess is that that gives Kraft too much credit, but maybe the only thing that could work is for Kraft to come out saying “We’ve listened, we made a bad mistake, and we’re going to change the name. We’re looking again at the entries and we’re thinking [insert possibilities here - Cheesymite (pending deal with Baker's Delight), Vegelite, Litemite, Spredgemite etc] What do you think of those?”.

And as for the people who made the iSnack 2.0 decision? Maybe if we leave a pistol in their desk drawers, they’ll do the honourable thing.

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OK, first part of my prediction came true. Now let’s see in 3-6 months. http://www.adnews.com.au/news.cfm?NewsID=6932&alpha=&beta=

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Erik – can you please give me the tattslotto numbers? You’re on a roll with predictions!

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Hey, I’m usually the first to call myself a genius, but anyone who’s ever worked with marketing clients would know that their first response is to defend. They have invested a lot of money in this, and aren’t ready to throw the name out before they have to… in 3-6 months or as the product dies…

Initial sales is no reflection on how the product will do in the long term btw, people like to try new stuff, especially if there’s a lot of talk. In fact, in many markets (like Japan) they’re happy to introduce new products just to get the first round of sales, and then launch a new variety or skew.

I also agree with David, in that I don’t think this is a PR stunt, that would almost be too clever…

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I’m always curious with these competitions why companies feel the need to ‘engage’ at the expense of their brand. But now that the iSnack deed is done I think the only way to recover is by Kraft showing their sense of humour. Acknowledging the sentiment and having a laugh at themselves.

It’s the Aussie way to deal with embarrassing situations.

P.s: another great post K!

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I get the feeling that someone submitted the name as a joke, then it actually made it through somehow.

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Erik, completely agree with you and David that this is not a PR stunt.

Also, I think you’re right regarding the initial sales as no reflection on the product’s sustainability. The curiousity-factor is in place here, and once things die down, it will be interesting to see how it finds its niche on the shelves.

From a long term branding point of view, I read that Kraft have left the door open to a name change down the track. This means that Janina (Mzjaygee) could be on the money with a solution to mitigate the PR fail. Laugh, acknowledge the backlash and move forward with a re-brand. I’m putting money on this as the next step for Kraft!

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Compare and contrast; iSnack2.0 & the McDonalds burger mentioned earlier in comments and a bridge in Brisbane http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/09/29/2699443.htm?site=brisbane and social media reaction to said name: http://twitter.com/jason_a_w/status/4453730654 / http://search.twitter.com/search?q=go-betweens

BTW, i like your focus on crisis management and the relevance of using the channels that the crisis is from to manage the situation. You’ve had a few posts on this topic and i think all the points you make are on the money. How hard would it have been for Kraft to have had someone searching twitter and other social media as the ad goes to air ready to jump on whatever the response is, good or bad?

If they were going to solely rely on traditional media, e.g. paying for an ad in the AFL Grandfinal but not having a twitter account, what was the plan for responding to the reaction? Despite the huge AFL audience they’ve left themselves hamstrung in that the best reply they could do would be a story in the Sunday or Monday paper. If it’s in the Sunday paper it’s going to sink as the Sunday papers aren’t taken seriously, in the Monday papers and they’re already close to two days behind the original announcement and reaction. Perhaps a quick response via a story on Sunday night news would work; that seems to rate pretty high and is always full of fluff and press releases anyway.

Come to think of it it would’ve been pretty easy and nifty to have a twitter account before the new name was launched. Give it some name like (o.k., that’s a shit name but hey, i’m a musician not a PR person) and then change the name as the ad airs. I know Scott Bridges of the Grods Corp blog changed his name from @GrodsCorp to @S_bridges when he shut down Grods, how easy would it have been to change the name and immediately use the account to put out a few tweets, possibly a bit fun an playful, that people might want to re-tweet on their own thus generating an immediate interest and/or connection in the name.

Mind you, all the strategy can’t save a shit product or idea. In this case a shit name.

DISCLAIMER: I am a passionate Marmite eater and thus was already full of contempt for Vegemite.

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Back in mid-July, I started a Spredgemite/Spreadgemite campaign on Twitter and a twitter hashtag.

So if they go with any variation of Spredgemite/Spreadgemite, I’ll be having a quiet chuckle.

And here’s how I approached it from a social media perspective:

“Spredgemite…start spreading the word.”

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