“Happy little vegemites” – 50 years on and still singing
Some things just never go out of fashion do they. It comes as a bit of a shock – because I actually remember the original ad! After learning to its cost just how much Australians love their Vegemite, the company has revived the 50-year-old television ad to market the spread to a new generation.
Kraft has gone back to the future with a reworked version of the original black-and-white ad from 1959.
Last year, Vegemite’s owner Kraft was forced to drop the name, iSnack2.0, for a Vegemite variant, a new cheese-based dip, following howls of protest from consumers. This time the company is not taking any chances and is taking a colourised version of the ad from the late 1980s and recording a new rendition of the jingle, the words to which, claims Kraft, are more widely known than that of the national anthem.
The jingle is sung by all the family members rather than just by children – part of an attempt to get its core users to eat it more often and get younger Australians to sing along.
Vegemite’s advertising agency said it approached the brief with trepidation. ”We are dealing with the people’s brand here,” said the chief executive of JWT .”When you have an asset as powerful as that you have to be careful. You can’t play around with it much.” The ad also features a voice-over talking about how people enjoy the spread in different ways, ”but there’s one thing that we all agree on, we love our Vegemite”.
Such is the power of branding… if it ain’t broke .. don’t fix it
