Poor old Kraft. If they thought the marketing disaster would end when they dumped the iSnack 2.0 name for its new cheese blend Vegemite product, they can think again.
Today’s controversy centres around when they actually came up with the name iSnack 2.0. Remember this was meant to be a crowd-sourcing kinda idea where all little Vegemite loving Australians jumped in with their two bobs worth to christen this new Aussie icon (that ironically is owned by the Yanks, but never mind that.)
So if Kraft registered the name iSnack2 before the competition finished, then voila – here was the proof that the skeptics needed to prove that this was not a dinkie-di Aussie love-in but a cavalier marketing play that amounts to brand-abuse.
Well, it now emerges that the name iSnack2.0 was registered on July 28 in Hong Kong along with other names including Snackerific and Crackertime. But the competition closed on August 14. Ha, say the skeptics. That’s proof enough it was a set up and taken the 30,000 Australians that put up 48,000 names for a ride.
Kraft, of course, has defended the registration saying that they had looked at the names, trademarked them the following day and that trade marking the names before the competition closed was no indication of a set up.
And for once in this whole PR disaster they are right. Of course they would be trademarking names as the competition ran. They set out to get everyone thinking of names for the cheesy spread and they would assume that Krafty folk might second guess names and trademark them first.
Trademarking is just good business. Oh, and I do love John Blank’s suggestion yesterday that they should name the new product ispread2.0 – the world’s first viral spread.
Smart Company is a sister publication to The Mandarin, catering to Australia’s entrepreneurs, small and medium business owners and business managers.
