IN THE NEWS THIS WEEK: A slice of Public Relations genius?

While Aussie icon, vegemite has been enjoyed by Aussie families since 1922, recently the perennial favourite enjoyed a resurgence of publicity in the media, with its recently launched ‘Vegeknife’.

An extremely simple, yet clever idea, the ‘Vegeknife’, is a double-headed knife allowing butter and vegemite to be spread using different ends of the knife. The vegemite team listened to its consumers, following research that more than half of the Aussie population were frustrated with the cross contamination of butter and vegemite – and in the process tapped into a genius opportunity.

While the limited edition, ‘Vegeknife’, is only available to 200 people via a competition on the brand’s Instagram, the big win has been in the media coverage, re-gramming and social media chatter –  with the simple concept kick starting another conversation, which enables the brand to stay relevant. The competition alone has already generated more than 27K comments on social media, not to mention the endless water-cooler conversations.

There was no controversial PR stunt, no big name celebrity – as a PR agency here in Sydney – sometimes it’s the simplest ideas that have the biggest impact, now if you excuse me I’m off to make some vegemite toast. Someone please pass the knife.

By Vanessa Strangio – Senior Publicist at InsideOut PR