With announcement today of a new vote (complete with shiny new website) to name the now infamous iSnack 2.0, I can’t help but feel a little bit duped.

I have the succinct feeling that whilst thousands of unsuspecting Australian’s rush to cast their vote to name a sandwich spread, somewhere in Kraft HQ a marketing executive is salivating at how brilliantly their plan has worked.

In just six days the following has happened;

• During the biggest television event in Australia for 2009, Kraft announce the new name for their cheese/vegemite spread ‘iSnack 2.0′.
• Public outcry ensues most people are asking ‘how the hell is this possible?‘
• The person who entered the name, Dean Robbins vanishes to Bali and is unavailable for comment.
• After a barrage of negativity Kraft announce they are dropping the iSnack 2.0 name.
• A new website is launched along with a vote to rename iSnack 2.0. The vote is outsourced to Quantum Market Research.


The new vote isn’t as straight forward as the original though. After whipping the public up into a frenzy by picking the stupidest name possible, Kraft have outsourced to Quantum Market Research (QMR) and are hoping your anger capitalises into a goldmine of personal information harvesting.

This time around Kraft and QMR want to know your gender, age, where you live, how you rank the preselected names from 1 to 6 and why you ranked them so.

It might sound innocent enough but multiply the answers by a few thousand and for a few advertising dollars Kraft have obtained invaluable demographical information about their customer base.

Usually customers are reluctant to give out such personal information to a large multinational corporation. Throw in a stupid product name and give the public the impression they’ve been given the opportunity ‘to set things right’ however, and watch the privacy barriers come tumbling down.

So, is it all just a big giant co-incidence in which Kraft have been none the wiser or are Australian’s now expected to play into the final hand of a marketing executive’s master plan?

I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Kraft and Quantum Market Research have been in bed together over iSnack 2.0 from the beginning.

Usually this sort of information has to be obtained from a begrudging public via the telephone. Here’s a letter Quantum Media Research wrote in protest over ACMA’s contemplation of extending the ‘Do Not Call’ registry to cover the ‘market and social research industry’.

People don’t like being harassed for this sort of information and to their credit, Kraft and QMR seem to have taken a unique approach to the problem.

Will it pay off though? Personally I won’t be participating in this blatant data mining exercise. If they’d have left it at admitting it was a stupid name I might have passed it off as just ignorance, but the more of this plan gets rolled out the more convinced I am it was a deliberate setup from the start.

The worst part of it is that if this does turn out to be successful for them (in terms of how much personal information they collect) I can see other companies contacting Quantum Media Research soon and wanting to emulate Kraft’s success.

Strip aside the ignorant mistake on Kraft’s behalf and all you’re left with is a bitter aftertaste of being taken advantage of. As a society, I’d rather we didn’t see more of this invasive style of marketing encroach on our lives.

The new names for iSnack 2.0 being offered up are ‘Vegemite Vegemate’, ‘Vegemite Vegemild’, ‘Vegemite Creamymate’, ‘Vegemite Snackmate’, ‘Vegemite Smooth’ and ‘Vegemite Cheesybite’.

From the choice of names it’s clear that Vegemite Smooth is least ridiculous sounding and I’m tipping is bound to win. Vegemite Smooth is probably the name Kraft had chosen all along to name their new spread before launching the iSnack 2.0 marketing debarcle.

This last week has simply been a marketing excercise to get people to give up their personal information for Kraft’s own market research and I for one am not impressed. Personal data mining should be transparent, the public shouldn’t have to be tricked into it under the guise of competitions.

1. iSnack 2.0 – Kraft have lost the plot
2. What the hell is Volley Warehouse?
3. Rudd & the UN: Putting personal gain before the nation
4. Let the Australian real estate market go bust already!