Unhappy little Vegemites vent their fury over iSnack 2.0

Julian Lee, SMH It must have seemed like a good idea at the time. But no sooner had Kraft trumpeted the name of its new Vegemite variant, iSnack 2.0, than it was met with almost universal condemnation by customers.

i-GeValt iSnack2.0
When I saw this campaign, I thought 2 things:

1. I've seen this name that flavour thing before - Smiths is doing it with the chip flavour thing, and they copied that with Walkers Chips. Winegecarribee library even had their own renaming competition for their young adults section and they did it back in June to win an iPod. The list should go on, but 3 is enough, enough to make it unoriginal. (there's a crap load of others here)
2. If I've seen this scenario before, it's been a case of that meeting room discussion:
   "We'll, this is working pretty good in the market right now, why don't we do it too. If all is going well for them, the laws should dictate that it goes well for us."
   Wrong iSnack 2.0. The first law of new media is that if you copy something without appropriation or amendment it will be doomed to fail. Not only because it is a copy, but because you have put no thought in to how your brand should behave in conjunction with the particular activation.
   The second law is that the consumer is 7 steps ahead of you. If you do something that the consumer is doing now, their ADHD won't handle a repeat.

And it's great that Vegemite has shipped 3 million jars of the cheesey vegemite spread, and in the end this discussion will blow over by the end of the week. BUT, and the big but, is why do agencies take the lazy route and recommend things to their clients without thinking them through properly? Or, for that matter, attempt the new stuff? Australia is lucky enough to have a relaxed enough consumer community to really push the envelope and here you are trying the tried, true and boring! Step up to the plate, use your options and make happy little vegemites proud!

...and I'm taking a holiday from cliches.