Vegemite celebrates Australia’s diversity for Harmony Week with new work via Thinkerbell
Vegemite and Thinkerbell are celebrating Harmony Week 2021 by recognising the diversity of cultures within Australia through its new ‘Tastes of Australia’ campaign developed by Thinkerbell.
In support of over 5 million Australians speaking a language other than English at home, Vegemite will run an outdoor campaign featuring Vegemite’s classic ‘Tastes Like Australia’ headline written in the top 10 most spoken languages in Australia – Mandarin, Arabic, Cantonese, Vietnamese, Italian, Greek, Tagalog, Hindi, Spanish and English.
Says Jacqui Roth, marketing manager spreads at Bega Cheese Limited: “Australia is a wonderful, unique and truly diverse nation. Of the more than 25 million people who live here, 21% speak languages other than English at home, yet just about all broadcast advertising is presented only in English.
“Any of the languages represented in these outdoor ads rarely feature on the Australian landscape yet are spoken in the home every day. We want to celebrate the diverse languages spoken and put them front and centre loud and proud on our outdoor advertising.”
As part of the Tastes of Australia campaign, Vegemite will also be sharing a series of recipes inspired by each of the top 10 most spoken languages in Australia. The new recipes will be available on the Vegemite website and social media channels. Australians are also invited to share their favourite dishes of cuisine from around the globe using Vegemite by posting on Instagram with the hashtag #TastesLikeAustralia.
Says Ben Couzens, chief creative tinker at Thinkerbell: “When people think about ‘Aussie cuisine’, Vegemite on toast often comes to mind. But really, our country is a melting pot of cultures and flavours, and our cuisine is broader and more diverse than ever before. We want to truly reflect our unique mix of cultures by putting our message out into the world in multiple languages.”
Breakdown of languages spoken in Australia besides English:
- Mandarin 23.2% (596,703 people)
- Arabic 12.1% (321,720 people)
- Cantonese 11.1% (280,943 people)
- Vietnamese 11.1% (277,391 people)
- Italian 10.1% (271,602 people)
- Greek 9.1% (237,583 people)
- Tagalog 7.1% (182,498 people)
- Hindi 6.1% (159,637 people)
- Spanish 5.1% (140,813 people)
Source: Ethnolink (2020)
49 Comments
Great
Rule
Simple and beautifully executed. Nice one Vegemite
Congratulazioni Thinkerbell
This is lovely
Nice inclusive concept.
Understand you are using the top 10 spoken languages in Australia.
But this would have been a fantastic opportunity to showcase Australia’s diversity and honour the first people of this land. Koori.
Also get there isn’t one Koori language but surely you could have found a way.
They could have localised each dialect with the placement. And as there were 100s of countries, possibly substituted ‘Australia’ with ‘Eora’ for example.
100%. Good pick up.
Nice call Not form australia. This stumbles right out the gate.
Love it.
This won’t sell Vegemite because diversity doesn’t sell. Diversity doesn’t have a group psyche. Thus the more multicultural we become, the less effective advertising will become. I’m happy to be proven wrong here.
But what if you considered yourself Australian and happened to speak that language? My Greek neighbour puts it on his lamb.
That would indicate that he bought Vegemite without being advertised too in his language. Funny that.
And if the purpose of this campaign was to advertise to the different nationalities using their own language, it would be a catastrophic waste of money.
But no, the message of this campaign is that Australia is diverse and thus buy Vegemite. Which I would argue is another catastrophic waste of money.
Remember Thinkerbell is more a PR agency than anything else. They will PR literally anything..is this good creative? Hardly. Good PR? Well we’re reading it
Does shitting on agencies and work make you a better creative?
Simple. Woke. Powerful.
Love this a nice way to talk about diversity in an interesting manner. The indigenous languages issue is vexed as there are so many of them and they are not in the top 10. It’s a lovely gesture and raises questions about how anglo our media / advertising culture is compared to the reality of suburban Australia.
I think a better question is, is it even worth advertising to the hundreds of different ethnic groups in Australia? Do we know how they think? What they do? Is it worth our investment in selling to a group that is 0.08% of the population? Has somebody thought about the Latvians?
The fact is is that we advertise in Anglo terms because Anglos are the predominate group in Australia by a large margin. It’s a laughably bad idea to then say “well, let’s sell to the other side” because there is no other side. There’s anglos, and literally hundreds of other ethnic groups, each with different likes, tastes, behaviours and spending habits. There is no “white Australia” and “diverse Australia”, I’m sorry to say. If you can figure out a way to advertise to one group without ignoring another (eg. Latvians), be my guest.
Yet some of the greatest campaigns in history have done exactly what you said is a laughably bad idea, and worked wonderfully. There are no ‘rules’ in creativity, ‘rules’ are the opposite of originality.
Can I see an example? Can you define “worked wonderfully”?
Whopper virgins.
@Smithy. Surely they could have used the indigenous language of where that individual billboard was geographically located?
But, not bad (for Thinkerbell).
It’s woke but lovely and makes use of the brand codes it’s a little DDB Maccas but nice
Did it say all the nominated cultures enjoy and embrace vegemite? If so great, if not, was it just an attempt at a brand trying to appear “diverse”? Will be interesting to see how effective the # is. Sadly, I suspect it’s the later.
I normally like thinkerbells work. But I find this quite offensive. They’re an Australian product whose Tagline is Like Australia and they’ve managed to make a billboard with every other language on it apart from the language of the First Nations people. Vegemite suddenly feels unaustralian
Love how diverse this is. So impactful and forward thinking! Wow! Diverse! Now THIS is advertising!
Great insight, great idea, great execution. So how do we fix that yeast infection aftertaste?
https://clios.com/awards/winner/21277
@Grim
I think saying an ad does or doesn’t sell is an oversimplification of what it takes to sell something. If it was as simple as the comment suggests, Vegemite could just run ads saying ‘Hey you! Buy some Vegemite’, they’d be billionaires and we’d all be out of work.
Surely we all accept that part of selling is creating awareness/saliency. When we buy an ad spot with one million impressions, we’re buying the opportunity to speak to a million people. Creativity is what determines whether we actually make the most of that opportunity or not.
Running ads that use brand codes in an unexpected way feels like a pretty good way to get noticed.
You’re right in that diversity doesn’t have a group psyche. Diversity also doesn’t have a wallet or a mouth. People do, and people will notice the ads.
They’ll notice the ads because there’s foreign writing on a large billboard. Much the same one would notice a house fire, or balls on a dog. It stands out. Great. That’s awareness. I am aware, much like dog balls, that that billboard and that brand exists.
But what’s the message? The message is that Vegemite supports diversity. Great. What does diversity have to do with Vegemite? What does being woke do for Vegemite? When I go to the supermarket, look at what’s on offer, with bags under my eyes from working my minimum wage job, do I scan the wall of spreads and think, “Yeah, I’ll go for the one that was written in Swahili one time?”.
I disagree with the whole premise of this campaign. I disagree that “awareness” will do anything for the brand. I disagree with so, so much that advertising is doing right now.
Just want you to be aware of that.
I remember studying advertising and living with a 40 year old labourer (hey, you take what you can get) who thought all ads were bullshit and didn’t work on him. A Garnier ad came on the TV with a chick bouncing around. Next week he bought Garnier shampoo. I don’t have time to go into detail about why ‘awareness’ works, but on a basic level the more familiar you are with a product, the less of a barrier you have to purchase. Why do Harvey Norman do so well with such shit work? Everyone knows them. I agree that just awareness is the weakest way to advertise, memorability is far more effective, but awareness does work. Unfortunately.
Yes, I reckon the brand written in a different language makes them feel more familiar. I happen to love things I don’t understand.
I also happen to love brands that talk to people other than myself. It makes me aware of them. (?)
I also love brands that – seemingly without reason – extoll the virtues of diversity. While I enjoy stagnant wages, long commutes, and atrocious house prices, I personally go out of my way to choose brands that advertise in Hindi.
With thinking like this, we’ve only ourselves to blame for the death of advertising.
This isn’t advertising. It’s branding.
You don’t know how brands grow
You do? Enlighten us, please. Good for our industry, surely.
The sentiment is fine, but the reality virtually impossible. There is no single first nations language, and even less a dictionary of written terms to translate into the everyday. It is spoken, so maybe some video to support this extension would be possible, but still requiring scores of versions.
Okay, so this is a big PR idea, which is fine. It’s PR because seeing all these execs like this together is way more powerful than just the one or two I might encounter in the wild. But not including an Indigenous language versions? And to the people who rightly say, there is no one language, so what? Look at each of the metro and regional areas you’re going in to and version for that region. Sure, that takes a lots more work than Google translate, but a PR idea, it would have made it immerably bigger. And for an idea that’s ‘all about Australia’, well, come on guys.
I like it. Reminds me of the “Aussie” posters.
Love it inclusivity snd sells stuff by keeping brand assets fresh clever
Simultaneously shit on for being woke and for not being woke enough
#adland
Even I know about distinctive assets and the need to keep them fresh this is an excellent amd really simple idea because it will help to sell stuff – that’s it The whole woke / not woke thing is irrelevant you have on this very clever advertising a whole lot of people looking at and processing Vegemite It’s first class and will not only sell atuff but should win awards as well
You can argue the merit of this work any way you like.
Vegemite is sufficiently famous that it will sell with advertising and without it. Awareness-based advertising will work as much as attribute-focused advertising.
Some people will love this inclusiveness concept. Others will see it as magnifying difference over unity.
It’s ultimately a salty, black spread. And this work will disappear from the public’s consciousness as fast as a Vegemite sandwich at playtime.
It’s just a horrible way to advertise the australianess of an Australians product. Pretty sure you’re your research will tell you that any of these languages don’t actually know who vegemite is.
Sure it has some issues but it’s a nice change from all the tired ‘Aussie Aussie Aussie’ tropes they usually have to lean on to get their brand message across.
Translating the same ad in different languages is hardly a new idea, yet it’s being pitched as sheer advertising brilliance here.
Hi jack who’s pitching this is ‘sheer advertising brilliance’?
“This isn’t advertising, it’s branding’
For real?
Yes. Advertising would involve an idea. This is taking the brand line and splashing it everywhere in every different language. An exercise in branding, not advertising.