Facebook Causes Brand Strategy Disaster

--*Warning - This post may contain sarcasm*--

Earlier this week one of my colleagues commited a heinous crime of branding, but one (sadly)encouraged by the very brand they were trying to help.

By trying to show their support for the product in question, they accidently blew a vortex of confusion through a decade long multi million pound campaign. I don't think they meant any harm, but the ramications of their actions could be felt for decades to come.

It's such a terrible turn of events that I feel i shouldn't even really tell you. But in the interests of marketing I must...

*sigh*

Ok.

She 'Liked' Marmite.

She 'Liked' Marmite...

You can't LIKE Marmite, heavens to Betsy. No-one LIKES Marmite, we either love it or hate it. That's what the ad says, that what the strategy says, that what people actually did even before the strategy came to light.

It all worked dammit, and now with these attempts at bringing FMCG products into the social space; they have destroyed 10 years worth of creative branding and recognition. Following her move, over 500,000 people have Liked it too... half a million people slowly destroying one of the great strategic and creative pieces of our time. The horror.

It's such a terrible terrible waste. I can't stand seeing campaigns suffer in this way, it just isn't fair. We shouldn't have to put up with such contradictions and puzzles.

Someone will be telling me Carlsberg make shit beer next...

Image from http://icanhascheezburger.com/, but you already knew that.

Choose Love, or Choose Hate

Whatever you may think of the product, it has been clear for a long time now that DDB's long term thinking for Marmite has been absolutely brilliant. They took an unfashionable 'growing up' spread and turned it into a credible brand of popular culture.

The new Marmite Election work is the latest piece of great work for the brand. Staging a Love it Party vs Hate it Party election alongside the general election. It's a smart idea, seemingly well produced and perhaps best of all, totally right for the brand.

The understanding of the brand is for me what makes this stuff so good; they took an insight that most brands would run screaming from and turned into a USP. That they stay true to this so many years later shows not only good agency leadership, but good client leadership. This is a brand that knows its tone of voice, knows its attitude and damn as near nails them every time.

I love it, I might add.

Via Campaign (inc image)

Oh Dear said Mr Brown

I love the new marmite ad with Paddington Bear. Such an iconic character reproduced with absolute faithfulness to the style and personality of the original.

And what I love even more is the fans funny reaction, claiming that Paddington would never give up Marmalade... to which the creator responds by saying:

He said he wanted to quell "an ill-founded rumour doing the rounds that I was responsible for the script of a television commercial featuring Paddington Bear testing a Marmite sandwich, adding that one of the reasons may have been that Marmite paid me a truly vast sum of money".

"I should be so lucky – particularly since I didn't write it", he said in a letter to The Times, adding: "I have to report that although Paddington found the sandwich interesting, bears are creatures of habit. It would require a good deal more than the combined current withdrawals from Northern Rock to wean him off marmalade, if then."

Maybe he should write ads with such witty charm as that.

Source: The Independent