23 Apr The Genius of General Election Marketing
On the eve of the second live TV election debate, I wrote a blog post for Uncorked, the BOTTLE PR blog, about the media’s impact on the 2010 election and about how the TV debates and digital campaigning are having an unprecedented affect on public opinion and even interest. Thanks to my interest in marketing communications I’ve made my mind up who I’m voting for…Marmite.
Yesterday morning I received through the post the leaflets below from both the Labour party and the Conservatives (yes, that is a picture of David Cameron on their leaflet and yes, he is my local Tory MP and yes, this does render my vote pretty much irrelevant, but this isn’t the time or place for a rant about proportional representation and political reform…). But what really caught my eye were the leaflets from the Love Party and the Hate Party. Working in social media circles I know all about Marmite’s Facebook campaign around the election, but I wasn’t expecting to receive direct mail from it.
For me, this is a spot of brilliance from the Marmite marketing team. I’m not sure they’re in bed enough with The Royal Mail to get their leaflets delivered on the same day as the official election communications across the country, but this was the icing on the cake for me. In the same morning I got to read about Labour’s priorities for West Oxfordshire, why David Cameron feels we need change in Britain today, and then how the Hate Party feels “it’s time we purged our country from the blight of Marmite” while the Love Party stated that Marmite making “your tongue hairy…is just one of the revolting lies proclaimed by the Hate Party”. Genius. It made me smile and it made me proud to be British. And I don’t say that too often!
From a PR viewpoint, Marmite is up there with Nick Clegg as the biggest winner from the election campaign thus far. In today’s papers, there are stories revealing that Unilever, maker of Marmite, is taking legal action against the disgraceful British National Party for using a jar of Marmite in a political broadcast – racist leader Nick Griffin arrogantly claims that the BNP is being mocked and that the Hate Party is based on the BNP. Someone looking desperately for news coverage, perhaps? Personally, I hope that Unilever sues the BNP within an inch of its life!
But political opining aside, the whole Marmite campaign is one that I personally love. The timing of the election couldn’t be much better for Unilever, but the way it has grasped the opportunity both online and offline to produce a fantastic integrated communications campaign deserves recognition. What do you think – love it or hate it?
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