Marmite

Marmite has produced a limited edition of 300,000 jars made using Guinness yeast. It tastes very nice indeed. Mildly curious as to how they make the stuff, after a lifetime eating it, I wandered onto the website. Because that's what the Internet is for.

Rarely has a site impressed me so much initially and then driven me so surely to rage. It's BLOODY annoying. There's no information there. Nothing. You can learn more about Marmite from Wikipedia. Which is a worry in itself.

The idea's smart. You either love Marmite or hate it, is the thinking - hence the whole themed campaign that Unilever (what, did you think it was home made or something?) has undertaken around the love it/hate it theme. So you have a site that's divided into love heaven and hate hell. Cool. Except that the concept is taken to its idiot extreme by a group of pony-tailed tossers who write 'copy for the kids' like this:

"Eat Marmite? You don't just want to eat it, you want to bathe in it, wallow in it like a hippo in mud, slather yourself from head to toe and wrap yourself in bread and butter... And you know what? That's fine. Just fine. Completely normal in fact..."

That's just a small taste. The site is unremittingly pointless. Here. You decide for yourself. Does going there just prove that it's a great idea? No, because it simply exposes more people to a negative and frustrating experience linked to the brand. Sure, use 'rich content' technologies to make your marketing point and even have a goof around with it to show that your brand is really hip - if you really must. But people want information from company websites before they want funky fun experiences - and if that informaton is simply not available, you're just going to tee them off...

Marmite website? Hate it.