I'm in love. It's funny how it blossomed, and in a quite unexpected way. We met in Sainsbury's, in the aisle with the jams and the marmalades.
It wasn't love at first sight. It happened a little more slowly than that. In fact, it wasn't until I got home that day that I realised what I'd been missing all these years...
SQUEEZY MARMITE! Oh! What an invention you are! What a dream! For years I've been scraping out the bottom of the jar with the tip of a buttery knife, scratching around through the thick brown glass. Not anymore! Now it's just a good old squeeze and out comes the Marmite - love it! I've got through two loaves of bread in the last ten days!
Whirwlind romances with household condiments aside (and I am sorry if I scared you), I actually really do like Marmite. I'm unambivalent about being a massive Marmite fan. I'll put it in a spag bol, deep in the tasty heart of a lasagne, or under a poached egg any day. It makes my mouth water even writing about it, actually. If there is a Marmite fence, I am clearly way out of sight of it.
Famously though, not everyone's over this side, eulogising a yeast extract. For some people, being in the same room as an open pot of the stuff is the equivalent of cracking open a jar of ammonia. That tangy, tasty smell swirls around their sensitive nostrils... and makes them want to retch. Believe it or not, I do sort of understand this too - there is something about that (delicious/vile) smell, that I agree is potent enough to push you either way. So far, either way in fact, that it's literally become a cultural meme to describe anything that broadly divides opinion as 'Marmite'. You either love it, or you hate it.
The people who make Marmite have strategically marketed it on the back of this inherent dichotomy. Imagine another product that was roundly despised by around half the population! Imagine Coca Cola actively promoting itself as 'tooth-rotting obesity juice', or Apple, bringing out a new iPhone with the slogan "iPhone XI - Half of you will seriously wish you stuck with Samsung."
Yet in this world of ever-widening divides and dividers, Marmite straddles us all. Their latest campaign offers free samples to find out whether or not you were 'born a lover or a hater'. Marmite, it seems, like a lot of notable dividers, doesn't mind being talked about - even if half of their strategy is displaying people who look like they're about to throw up having just eaten it.
Clever stuff.
Meanwhile, my 'love affair' continues. Though I think I should probably try cutting down on the toast.
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