Yesterday's news that the BNP had adopted (officially or otherwise) the much loved (or hated) Marmite brand on a recent web cast as a symbol of their Britishness and suitability to govern seemed no more unusual than some of Marmite's marketing comms and of course scarily aligned to their current General Election advertising.
Got me thinking about advertising and the moral high ground that products occupy in their own minds....
Marmite - national institution? No question. Distinctive interesting and very clever brand positioning? Absolutely.
But what made them think that they were immune to any retaliation from (those horrible people) at the BNP after their very thinly veiled attack with their own 'National Hate Party' as featured in their current ad campaign.
They were cheeky and so were the BNP - Bloodied noses all round and no real harm done - did anyone really think that Marmite were endorsing BNP?
Both Marmite and the BNP are part of what makes Britain what it is. A schizophrenic mixture of tradition and modernity, pride and embarrassment, innovation and the Status Quo and of course love and hate.
I think St. Georges Day is a perfect day for this thought although I must say that I was slightly nervous coming to work this morning that there might be sampling crews at Marylebone Station handing out jars of Marmite with little crosses of St. George on them.....It seems Marmite do know when they could go too far.
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