JKR

Some brands just seem to be on it don’t they? The Marmite pop up shop will be on London’s Regent Street in the run up to Christmas, selling a hundred branded gifts, running “taste offs” with Vegemite etc. Marmite is one of those brands which seems to constantly crop up with engaging and newsworthy advertising, innovation, PR etc. They’re always up to something.

So what’s their secret? The foundations are obvious: a combination of having a powerful hook in the Love it/Hate it idea, which has so much scope that communication and ideas seem to almost generate themselves. And being a famous brand helps. But Marmite isn’t passively “iconic”. Rather the brand has the energy and will to display iconic brand behaviour (as opposed to just putting the design out there and leaving it at that).

So many brands could be as interesting as Marmite, but the best ideas always seem to stall at the brainstorm flipchart, put away till things are less frantic perhaps. After all, most daft ideas are not the focus of the brand manager’s day job. “There’s no such thing as a bad idea” is the chirpy opening mantra of many brainstorms. Well, there is, but the worst idea of all is to shelve all the interesting thoughts in the interests of an efficient “pipeline of activity”. Marmite has the application to make ideas happen – things that would elsewhere seem peripheral are the lifeblood of their activity. And when things are frantic in the day job, smart brands also open themselves up to good ideas and manpower from entrepreneurial partners. The pop up shop was the brainchild of Hot Pickle, run by ex Marmite Marketing Manager Rupert Pick.

It’s just a busy brand, getting on with it where others lack the dynamism to make things happen. So here’s to  success that is the just dessert of a hard working team.