Notorious Beam Team

From Coolhunting:

"In time for St. Patrick's Day, Guinness yeast extract will be used to make a special spread, limited to 300,000 jars. It's available today 19 February 2007 for around 2.49 from supermarkets in the UK."

Cheryl Calverley, of Marmite, said: "This is the most unusual innovation in our history. We will be watching carefully to see if customers want this as a permanent option."

Here's their post on Flickr:

"Some say it’s madness, others say it’s genius, but this year’s must-have for St Patrick’s Day is new limited edition Guinness™ Marmite Yeast Extract Spread.

Hot on the heels of our recent launch of Guinness Red which you seem to love loads we are launching the iconic Marmite glass jar filled with darker ‘Guinness Marmite’ spread. The glass now appears black when full and together with the white lid replicates a pint of Guinness.

This is a special edition launch with only 300,000 jars being created which means this will be the must have edition to any St Patrick's party.

This unique product has been created using a special recipe with 30% Guinness yeast (a specific strain of yeast used only to make Guinness), giving it a subtle Guinness flavour, without the alcohol.

The limited edition 250g jars of Guinness Marmite (RRSP £2.49) will be on-shelf from 18th February, in time for St. Patrick’s day on the 17th March, for around six weeks. Stockists include Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Waitrose, Morrisons, and Co-op."

If you look at the Marmite Forum you'll see a post and link to Wikipedia's page on Guinness Yeast Extract and suggesting a tie in. Who needs focus groups! All our brands should have this model built into them. A brand that has a forum and a string of wikipedia entries by definition is a brand people are talking about. These aren't consumers they are enthusiasts.

Good example of 2 brands embarking on a tie in that's mutually beneficial for both of their brand molecules. Great timing, great idea and great innovation. They have also got all of their 2.0 bases covered: Flickr, wikipedia backstory, forum seeding etc. Have they used any paid for media?

We are all getting very excited about the concept of Brand/Marketing Enthusiasm as a move on from Brand Engagement. The best person to find out about Marketing Enthusiasm is John Grant on his Brand Tarot blog. He is vigorously expounding the theory in an open source manner with his a presentation on Marketing Enthusiasm available to view on Flickr here.



To read his full post on Marketing Enthusiasm click here and see below for an extract.

"This should be understood as a radical new alternative to marketing aspiration (image). It is about being involved in things you have a passion for vs passively buying something which might make you look good. That’s still a factor in some markets - eg fashion - but even here TopShop have shown that marketing enthusiasm can play a role.

Enthusiasm is if you think about it the key driver of internet 2.0
eBay, YouTube, Flickr, Wikipedia… no brand image, but a lot of enthusiasm."

1. find a bigger enthusiasm than your brand
2. Give people a way to get involved
3. Innovate to build life-relevance
4. Co-operate
5. Catch On
6. Partner Up
7. Build a Molecule

Have one strategy; ie one enthusiasm. (Anyone who insists on calling this a proposition, that’s fine - it’s nearly Christmas after all - but I would tend to call it your issue or agenda). For instance Top Shop brings the high fashion experience to the high street. Then you need to add multiple ideas to keep it fresh, attract different segments, develop it organically, avoid being cling film wrapped with ‘consistency. Top Shop and London Fashion Week, Kate Moss, Personal Dressing, the AIDS charity auction, vintage range…"

This is all gold dust and is fleshed out more fully in his book "The Brand Innovation Manifesto" and to get involved in the community that is chatting about this idea get involved in the Brand Tarot blog.

His idea really strikes a chord with all the stuff we have been focusing on recently and fits very snugly with the concept that how and what you do is far more important than what you say.



Hoopla also has some brilliant support for this idea as well. CP+B have been doing this work for years and their book is brilliantly engaging piece of communication in its own right. Work such as Subservient Chicken for Burger King, the Rabbit for VW and Truth against smoking is completely on the money.



What does everyone think? I'm very enthusiastic about it for starters.