Marmite spent the summer calling itself WeMite, and the medium jar turned out to be right.
For the World Cup the brand renamed itself WeMite, which sounds like “we might”, and put out jars sized to how much you believed in England. Small was Reach the Quarters. Medium was Reach the Semis. Large, for the properly deluded, was Go and Win It. Cross of St George in the middle of the label, yellow lid, and round the bottom where the jar normally promises B vitamins it said “rich in vitamin B and optimism”.
England lost 1-2 to Argentina in the semi-final on 15 July. Medium jar. Somebody in a branding meeting called the entire tournament to the round and will never be credited for it.
The campaign
It came from adam&eve\TBWA (yes, lower case, yes, with the ampersand, thatisNOTatypo), who have done a lot of the brand’s better work down the years, with PR by W Communications. The jars went out through a partnership with Heathrow Express, which is a smarter piece of targeting than it first looks: you catch people during the fifteen minutes when they have already started thinking about what they are going to miss.
Morgan McAuley, Senior Brand Manager at Marmite, gave the official version. “Whether fans were packing for the group stages or preparing for England to go all the way, we wanted to make sure they could take a proper taste of home with them.”
The creative directors, Darren Beresford and Richard Gayton, were more honest about the brief. “It’s a grim thought, all of those travelling fans having to suffer through American breakfasts this summer.”
I hold a US passport and have family over there, and I am telling you they are correct.
What I can’t tell you
The trade coverage is thin on the boring details and I have failed to pin them down. No retail price anywhere I can find. No production run. No clear answer on whether these ever reached an actual supermarket or lived entirely inside the Heathrow activation. Every write-up mentions Heathrow Express and then stops, which usually means every write-up was working from the same press release.
My guess is activation rather than launch, which puts it in a different bracket from something like Marmite Dynamite, which had a Sainsbury’s listing and a price on the shelf. If you bought one, or better still still have one, tell me where you got it.
The Scotland jar
Every write-up I have read calls this an England campaign. It wasn’t.
There is a fourth jar. Same shape, same yellow lid, same line about vitamin B and optimism, but with the saltire in the middle instead of the cross of St George, and a different prediction on the ribbon. Get Out of the Group.
Scotland’s jar carries an ambition that does not appear anywhere on the English range, for the simple reason that England getting out of the group was an assumption rather than a hope. The most optimistic thing Marmite was willing to print on a Scottish jar sits a full tier below the least optimistic English one. Somebody wrote that line, somebody approved it, and I would love to have been in the room.
Scotland were drawn in Group C with Brazil and Morocco. They won one match, finished third and went out at the group stage - but it was SOOO CLOSE!
I cannot tell you whether Get Out of the Group also existed as an England size, and the press is no help because it barely admits the Scottish jar exists at all. The jar is real, though. A campaign that took the trouble to extend its own joke north of the border deserved better coverage than it got.
A bet with a settlement date
Novelty packaging is usually just novelty packaging. Rename the jar, take a week of coverage, move on. Nobody (other than me) is still talking about the Ma’amite jars.
What makes this one different is that the sizes were a claim, and there was a result coming in a fortnight to settle it. Brands do not normally do that. Brands like their jokes safe and unfalsifiable, and this one had a scoreline attached: if England had gone out in the group stage the whole range would have been a joke at Marmite’s expense, sitting in Heathrow, unsellable.
There is something very English about the outcome, mind. The optimistic option was on the shelf, plenty of people presumably bought it, and the sensible middle position was the one that came in.
Did the jars survive?
They will be on eBay for years. The Go and Win It jar is the one that will hold its value, because the wrong prediction always makes the better souvenir, and the medium jar will quietly disappear into cupboards.
Marmite has been doing this sort of thing since the Love and Hate party spoofs, and it works best when there is a bit of edge on the joke rather than just a new label. This one had actual risk attached. More of that, please.
What was WeMite?
WeMite was a limited-edition Marmite rebrand for the 2026 FIFA World Cup, created by adam&eve\TBWA. Marmite changed its name on the jar to WeMite, a play on “we might”, and released sizes tied to predictions for England’s progress: WeMite Reach the Quarters (small), WeMite Reach the Semis (medium) and WeMite Go and Win It (large). A Scotland version also exists, carrying the saltire instead of the St George’s cross and the wording WeMite Get Out of the Group. Every jar carried the line “rich in vitamin B and optimism”.
Where could you buy WeMite jars?
The jars were distributed through a partnership with Heathrow Express, the fifteen-minute rail service from central London to Heathrow Airport, aimed at England fans travelling to the tournament in the United States. Whether they also reached general UK retail has not been confirmed in the trade coverage, and no retail price has been published.
Was there a Scotland WeMite jar?
Yes. Alongside the England jars, which carry the cross of St George, there is a Scotland version carrying the saltire and the wording “WeMite Get Out of the Group”. It uses the same yellow lid and the same “rich in vitamin B and optimism” line round the bottom of the label. Almost all the trade coverage of the campaign described it as England-only and did not mention the Scottish jar. Scotland were drawn in Group C with Brazil and Morocco, won one match, finished third and were eliminated at the group stage.
How far did England get in the 2026 World Cup?
England reached the semi-final and lost 1-2 to Argentina on 15 July 2026 in Atlanta. Anthony Gordon scored for England in the 55th minute, Enzo Fernandez equalised in the 85th and Lautaro Martinez scored the winner in stoppage time. Argentina went on to face Spain in the final and thank heavens - lost. In WeMite terms, the medium jar was the accurate one.
