Marmite cereal bar direct mail case study

Manufacturer Unilever played 'Brandicide' – where companies push the boundaries of their brands to extremes – with its direct marketing campaign for its new Marmite cereal bar.

Agency Iris London extended Marmite's successful ‘love it or hate it’ advertising strategy – created by DDB London – into new territory by mailing consumers a spoof tube of Marmite-flavoured toothpaste, and asking ‘Have we gone too far?’.

The mailer – which was in fact the cereal bar – was sent out to 250,000 consumers and invited recipients to try the new bar and tell Unilever what they thought of the taste.

The pack also contained money-off vouchers, either for more Marmite bars or Signal toothpaste, depending on whether consumers loved or hated the new product. Iris also set up interactive video booths at train stations nationwide where commuters could film their reactions to free samples of the new savoury snacks, and displayed the best responses on large screens and online.

The campaign made Marmite a real talking point, with Google recording 60,000 conversations online about how far the product branding idea could be stretched.