By If you are wondering why on earth this blog post is about Marmite vs Vegemite, then you’re obviously not a fan of either of these two wonderful spreads. That’s fine – each to their own.
If, on the other hand, either of these two amazing spreads makes you go as crazy as a cat on catnip, then you are not alone. I love Marmite and on my travels around the world I have learned to appreciate Marmite’s distant cousin – Vegemite.
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On Friday the photography studio next door to our office was filled with culinary treats for a hamper photo shoot, and at the end of the day these cakes started to appear in the Blueclaw office.
I’m all for homemade donuts, strawberry flans and profiteroles. However, at the end of the day, I’m really a savoury kind of guy. So this Sunday morning I decided to invent something new (or so I thought at the time).
Obviously in order to produce a new masterpiece, it is necessary to experiment with at least one rival – in this case Vegemite. Before I started I needed some facts, and where better to start than the labels:
The Nutritional values
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So, looking at the facts Marmite is worse for you than Vegemite in terms of the salt, which as we all know in theory should make it tastier. Just one teaspoon contains nearly 10% of your recommended daily salt allowance!!!
Marmite Eggy Bread vs. Vegemite Eggy Bread
Well, as the name suggests, I took one of the national favourites – ‘Eggy Bread’ – and combined it with a thin layer of Marmite/Vegemite. Vegemite is not native to the UK shores, but luckily large shops are starting to stock this Australian delicacy. This particular pot came from ASDA in Pudsey, Leeds.
Ingredients
2 eggs
A glug of milk
Pepper
English muffins
Butter/oil for frying.
Marmite/Vegemite
Break the eggs into a large bowl, add the milk and pepper and beat for a minute. Next take the English muffins, cut them in half, spread Marmite on one half and Vegemite ontuther.*
Dunk the muffin halves in the batter, coating them on both sides. Now here’s the trick; you need to leave them in for about a minute to absorb as much eggy yumminess as possible. While your muffins are taking a swim, place a knob of butter or blob of oil in a frying pan and heat under a moderate to high heat. Cook your muffins in the pan on both sides until golden brown and serve hot.
The results
When they are cold they both have very different distinct flavours, however when cooked they tend to taste very similar. Although, if I have to be honest I think Marmite still has the edge. This could possibly be because I was brought up on it! Ok, so it doesn’t look the best, but I assure you it’s very tasty. It’s the Marmite that makes it that colour by the way – I didn’t burn it!
In order to decide once and for all I had to add the fiinishing touch – CHEESE. As I’m sure you know, cheese makes everything better. Whether it’s a Wine & Cheese evening, or that bit of plastic stuff that you put on a burger, cheese quite simply rocks! If I could only take one thing with me to a desert island, it would be a fridge full of cheese. Technically that’s two things, but cheese and hot weather don’t mix so I would be forced to break the rules.
Anyway, back to the Eggy Bread. In my opinion, it was definitely a winner and if you want to go crazy then you can’t go wrong adding a bit of cheese. So what has all this got to do with my job?! Well…. I just wanted to share what I thought was a great invention with the world. Since sitting down to write this blog post, I have realised that my epiphany has been done before! Oh dear, how sad that I’ve been missing out for all these years. Never mind.
Why such a random blog post?
Simple! Marmite is an excellent example of how Social Media should be done. Not many brands positively engage in negative social noise. They have used the fact not everyone likes Marmite and turned into a social market tool.
Number of likes on Facebook
I hate Marmite – 183,365
Marmite Love Party – 679,819
Vegemite on the other hand only has 192,159
Social noise is something which we have been talking about ever since the Google Panda update and it’s certainly a great way to boost both SERP rankings and drive traffic to a site. So with that in mind, is the phrase ‘all news is good news’ good for business? I would love to see Marmite’s sales figures for the last month, since news agencies decided to publish exaggerated stories about it being banned. Letter E market this news event.
So with all this in mind, is negative social noise good or bad?
* Ontuther – a Yorkshire word meaning ‘on the other’. Yorkshire men are renowned for shortening sentences and I’ve been meaning to sneak this word into a blog post for some time.