Reality Equation

I'm Parimal Satyal, a web designer, writer, musician, explorer. More about me ››

The Second Coming of Vegemite

Remember the new Vegemite-with-cream-cheese I was so excited about when I was in Sydney? And remember how it didn’t have a name then and Kraft was running a contest for suggestions? Well, it has a name now.

It’s called iSnack 2.0.

Vegemite iSnack 2.0

Weren’t excepting that, were you? Neither were Australian consumers, who were outraged at the suggestion. Vegemite, a national Australian icon (and the breakfast spread that people love to hate), reduced to the whims of the Web 2.0 crowd? And when did food items start requiring version control?

But, as it were, the product will not be called iSnack 2.0. It’ll be called Vegemite Cheesybites, after another round of polling. And although most will agree that this name is certainly more fitting than the first one was, I doubt it would have gotten as much publicity as the first name did.

The spread is actually not bad. It doesn’t quite taste like cream cheese, but it’s certainly a sweeter version of the spread.

In any case, good on’ ya Kraft.

November 27th, 2009
Food & Drinks

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achyut

November 27th, 2009

haha

Ian McEwen

November 30th, 2009

See, the real reason is this: to call it an iSnack in good conscience, they’d have to legitimately associate the product with Apple. Unfortunately, when in discussions, Apple made some changes they didn’t like — for example, changing the convenient, time-tested lid to a new and hip system with a side door in the jar. They couldn’t say “deliciously different” — it was all about “think different: iSnack.” Pictures of Amelia Earhart, Gandhi. And naturally, the two-color scheme had to go. But, they’d have two versions: white and black cases. The price was also too low — there had to be at least 150% jackup in the prices for Apple to agree.

Kraft just couldn’t take it — a new poll was far easier than appeasing Apple, now that they’d brought them into the equation. Another sad story.

(okay, that was totally bullshitted, and it’s three in the morning. Hopefully it was amusing anyway. Oh, and you misspelled ‘expecting’ as ‘excepting.’ Further computer jokes about error handling in various languages aside, I’m going to guess that wasn’t intended!)