Call Business Clarity on 02 9683 6311

The City of Sydney Chinese New Year Celebration was chosen as the communication platform, as it engages directly with Australia's largest ethnic group, Chinese.

Engagement was focused on demonstrating how Vegemite could be incorporated into Asian recipes.

On-site cooking demonstrations, food tastings, product giveaways, recipe leaflets, plus feedback surveys were utilised to engage with festival attendees.

All materials produced were bi-lingual Chinese/English and consumer response was overwhelming, with participants surprised by the innovative uses of Vegemite as a cooking ingredient for Chinese dishes.

Approximately 12,000 people visited the Vegemite stall over three days and 2,000 surveys were conducted.  A good per cent of non-Vegemite buyers to the stall are likely to buy the product due to the positive food tasting experience.

AMI's Brand Extension Award is awarded to campaign with planning and implementation that demonstrates measured effectiveness in improving total brand equity and that this new equity delivers sustained commercial benefit rather that delivering short term sales results.

Judge's Comments:

It is not very often that you come across an entry for an 85 year old Australian icon in a marketing award.  Being Australian born, Vegemite has been with me almost all of my life and I was somewhat surprised to read that brand penetration was down be almost 10 per cent over seven years.

Although the identification of the problem appears to be simple, the solution adopted was imaginative and highly targeted.  The solution, focused on taste within traditional cooking providing an opportunity to obtain almost instant feedback that enabled activity to not only commence to claw back lower penetration but also provided an export opportunity.

I particularly liked the way in which the activity was used to provide feedback for future product development - a bonus!