"The Vegemite Story" Article by Steve Marsten

I recently perused an article on how vegemite became successful. It was quite inspiring. It was invented by a Gentleman named Cyril Callister. He was university educated and he wanted to come up with a product to match Marmite which was hard to get during wartime. In 1923 the Vegemite product started rolling off the production line. The problem was, the salespeople hated it and there were more jars returned than going out the door! Several times the business was on the brink and almost went under. The National Australian Bank at the time supported them to keep the doors open.


He went on to sell processed cheese in partnership with Kraft and in a piece of marketing brilliance, gave a small jar of vegemite away with every block of cheese. After a British scientist then discovered that Vegemite cured Pigeons with polyneuritis (or beriberi), the marketing approach changed and focussed on Vegemite as a rich source of Vitamin B – the all-round wonder food! There were some outrageous claims about it curing almost any ailment however by the late 1930’s, the health message had been taken up by the baby health centres.  It has often been the reason that adults whose mothers believed in the product, usually have a more savoury palate than children of today who are less likely to be exposed to Vegemite. And as they say in the classics – the rest is history and we created “the Vegemite kid”!

The keys to take from this story are:

1.       If at first you appear to fail, the product may not be the problem;
2.       Marketing strategy is extremely important; Have a plan B to fall back to;
3.       Are there any key elements of the product that you have not explored?
4.       Employ people who truly love the product they are selling.
5.       Consider other ways to get the public interested in your product.

Have you got a great product that isn’t selling as well as it should?

Have you implemented a marketing strategy that produced outstanding results?
Is your team supportive and do they believe in the product or service that they are selling?

Having a business consultant to bounce your ideas off is a great benefit to anyone in business.  The experienced staff at Sothertons are focussed on growing profits for business owners. Feel free to contact them on 4972 1300.