The Marmite effect: wrapping up

We finish our ‘Marmite brand’ mini-series by looking in further depth at those brands that polarise opinion within the leisure sector. Leisure brands, it turns out, are hated by very few people, which is understandable, as it would be hard to rail against say, Cluedo (perhaps that 3% of unhappy respondents had been forced to sit through one too many tedious family bonding sessions). The most loved brands here were Monopoly, Disney, Trivial Pursuit and the Eden Project, while football clubs were the most hated, especially by men. No Leisure brands are genuinely polarising.

So what can brands learn from all of this?

1. As noted in our original report, dominance and polarisation are strongly correlated, which is presumably both cause and effect: have a big impact and you’ll become successful, get too successful and people will start resenting you.
2. Food and Drink brands are the most ‘Marmitey’, especially fast food brands. Along with the factors noted by Tony in his recent post, this is further proof of the high emotive stakes in the food industry. While many people love the brands that provide them with cheap, tasty food, others see fast food as a legal drug: something that damages both individuals and society. Imagine if Burger King were Reefer King, and instead of obese children you saw spaced out teenagers in every shopping centre.
3. Marmite’s marketing has worked a treat. Marmite came out as the top ‘Marmite’ brand (even though the word was mentioned at no other point in the survey than within the lists of brands provided). Some will say that this is because of its particularly odd taste. While this is true to some extent, it doesn’t explain why other strong-tasting brands failed to score as highly in the ‘Marmite’ stakes. I personally can’t stand the taste of gin, but I have no hard feelings towards Gordon’s. It turns out that if you tell consumers that ‘you either love it or you hate it’, most of them will end up agreeing with you.

Read more here

• The Marmite trend spreads
• Marmite: Horrid Henry and Perfect Peter
• Dixons marmalize the competition

About the author

Dave Bevan is an Interim Analyst working mainly in the Education Team at FreshMinds Research. He previously worked for the G77 (group of developing countries) at the Rome Chapter of the United Nations, and before that was a dessert chef, a tour guide on London’s open-top buses and an inconsistent stand-up comic. Dave’s interests include this, this and this.