Marmite is targeting Gen Z with a playfully suggestive campaign, inviting the next generation to experience their ‘first time’ with the savoury yeast spread.
Created by adam&eveDDB, this incentive marketing effort follows a YouGov survey revealing that 43% of 18-24-year-olds in the UK have never tried Marmite.
The 60-second film – dubbed ‘First Timers’ – features puppets who try out putting Marmite on a slice of toast for the first time.
Set the remixed electro track, “Workout”, by US music producer Giraffage, the characters are invited to stroke that”, “push that” and “lick that” via a series of suggestive scenarios, before concluding; “Love it. Hate it. Get it on.”
Showcased across TV, video-on-demand, social and DOOH, the campaign is supported by Spotify banner ads and ASMR ads to get potential Marmite customers ‘in the mood’.
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In addition, as the campaign coincides with fresher’s week – the first week of university for students and dubbed as the brand as “famously a time of experimentation” – the brand is set to give thousands of sampling kits to ‘first-timer’ young people.
Alongside the these samples, the brand has also launched a TikTok challenge called “Are you a Marmite First-Timer?” and a quiz on Tinder called ‘Sticky Situations’, asking participants to “love” or “hate” certain behaviour in a potential partner.
Finally, the brand has also launched a PR campaign, led by W Communications, which will will invite university students to ‘pop their Marmite cherry’.
The experience will see first-timers taken through a series of specially curated sensory experiments, all designed to help them discover whether they are a lover or a hater, and playfully bring to life the suggestive scenarios seen in the hero.
“The UK has a great tradition of comedy double acts: French and Saunders, Reeves and Mortimer, Mel and Sue, Mitchell and Webb,” said adam&eveDDB group executive director, Ben Tollett.
“Unfortunately they all declined the auditions, so we were stuck with a pair of filthy-minded puppets.”
Marmite brand manager Laura Iliffe added: “When we saw the number of young adults who had never even tried it – we knew we had to do something to dare them to take the plunge and try our special spread.”
“This campaign represents a step-change in the way we advertise Marmite – with a clear focus on driving trial and penetration. We want to recruit our next generation of lovers, and show young adults how to approach their first-time with Marmite.”
The campaign follows in the wake of an campaign earlier in the year by the brand that saw parents explore whether their babies will be lovers or haters of Marmite.
