The setup
Marmite XO (the extra-strong, double-aged version) launched in 2010. The standard launch playbook for an extension of a heritage brand is, broadly, “advertise on television, put it in supermarkets, hope for the best”. Marmite did not do that.
Instead, the brand invented a secret society called the Marmarati. Fictional, of course. Members were the original tasters of Marmite XO, sworn to secrecy, organised into ranks (the founding members were the First Circle), inducted through ceremonies, photographed in candlelit rooms with wax-sealed envelopes and brass keys. The whole thing was structured as if it were a leaked dossier from a real secret society that the public had stumbled across.
Marmite fans applied to join. The genuinely keen ones got hand-stamped, wax-sealed Marmarati cards and were sent advance jars of XO. The rest watched the campaign play out across cleverly-staged photography on the brand’s website and in the trade press.
Why it worked
The Marmarati campaign worked because it took the existing Marmite-fan-base posture (a slightly obsessive subculture, devotion to a single product, occasional name-changes by deed poll) and gave it a piece of theatre to play in. Fans who had been waiting for the brand to acknowledge their devotion suddenly had a structure, ranks, and a way of feeling officially part of something.
It also worked because the marketing was sincere. There is a version of this campaign that would have been condescending, an ad agency winking at the audience while pretending to take it seriously. The Marmarati version did not wink. The candle-lit photography was straight-faced. The wax seals were real wax. The whole conceit was committed to.
When you commit to a joke, the audience commits with you. That is the rule.
The shelf life of the joke
Marmite XO is still sold, still extra-strong, still the same product the Marmarati launched. The Marmarati apparatus has quietly faded as a marketing live-fire exercise, but the original cards and induction packs are now collector’s items, and the photography is still circulated online when British advertising people are listing their favourite campaigns.
It is also, structurally, one of the early examples of what would later be called “community marketing”, a generation before the term was in widespread use. The agency that pitched it understood that Marmite’s fan base was already a community looking for a structure to belong to. They built the structure. The rest was inevitable.
Sequels would have been a mistake
The other thing the brand did right is they only did this once. There was no Marmarati: The Return when the next Marmite extension launched. No Marmarati Goes To Pride. No Marmarati Christmas Special. The joke is preserved as a 2010 artefact, untouched by subsequent attempts to milk it.
That is unusual restraint and worth pointing to. Most brands cannot resist the second outing. The Marmarati existed for one launch, did its job, and went quietly back into the velvet-lined box.
If you have an original induction card, hang on to it. Eventually it will be worth proper money.
Source: Marmite XO 2010 launch campaign; the Grocer; the Marmite Museum.
