Vegemite burns Poms in brutal Ashes sledge – News.com.au

A viral campaign surrounding a full-page ad in London newspaper The Daily Mirror has had the Poms spitting out their tea.

The cheeky ad proudly throws its support behind the Aussie cricket team after captain Tim Paine’s team came from nowhere to take a 1-0 series lead.

The ad, which features a block of text over the top of Vegemite’s iconic red and yellow colours, celebrates Australia’s victory in the First Test and purely delights in being able to take some cheeky digs at those sour Poms.

It comes in response to a Marmite marketing campaign launched before the First Test which made no secret of the British spreads’ ambition of converting Aussie cricket fans to the rival breakfast condiment.

As part of the campaign, marketing promotional employees, branded as the Marmy Army, have been handing out free samples of Marmite at the cricket and will be continuing throughout the rest of the five-test series.

Vegemite’s response brought a gun to a knife fight.

“G’day, news has reached down under that free jars of Marmite are being handed out at the Ashes to try to prove it tastes better than our Vegemite,” the ad read.

Vegemite held nothing back. Source: Instagram

“Are you guys barmy? Of course the refined English palate will prefer yours.

“You see, Vegemite is a far stronger taste, made of resilience and fortitude with a dash of cunning and guile.

“Vegemite tastes like back to back tons on your return Test. Vegemite tastes like a come from behind victory by 251 runs.

“You lot won’t like the taste of Vegemite. Because Vegemite tastes like Australia.

“Catch ya at Lord’s.”

The brain behind the campaign, consumer psychologist and media commentator Adam Ferrier, said on Friday the initial response from the UK has the ad creating something of an “international incident”.

He also proudly declared the scoreboard reads 1-0 in Australia’s favour in both the cricket and marketing battles.

Vegemite also posted the message on Instagram. Source: Instagram

“It’s good for brands to occasionally stand for something and that’s what Vegemite’s done,” he told Perth Radio on Friday.

“We think the competitor Marmite is a soft middle-order yeast-based spread and Vegemite is a lot stronger, a lot tougher and made of sterner stuff than that. And we wanted to get that message out there.”

He said the campaign has gone “nuts” on social media and admits more than a few English people are upset about it.

The ad has been almost universally well received back at home, however, with Aussie commentators getting behind the unifying theme of getting one over on the old enemy.