Bizarre brand extension prize: Marmite cereal bars

Interesting brand extension that illustrates the points made in this week's earlier post about following the money. Or not.

Here we have Marmite savoury spread launching …. cereal bars. The brand team and agency clearly think its a bizarre brand extension themselves, going by the advertising you can see below. Marketing magazine describes these as "self-referential ads poking fun at Marmite's propensity for brand extensions".

Mmm. Now these ads work well for the marketing and ad-land community. But I'm not sure about your average shopper.

But, the bigger issue here, as discussed on the earlier post, is not "can Marmite stretch to cereal bars", but rather "Can Marmite make any money out of cereal bars"?

Let's try out the 2 questions that help us follow the money.

Size of prize: Med to low
1. Market attractiveness: Big, growing market
2. Brand added value: sure is a distinctive concept and product by offering a savory cereal bar… but will it taste nice enough to get repeat purchase, not just try it once?

Ability to win: loq
1. Economies of scale => Unilever have no cereal bar business, so this will be I guess a 3rd party
2. Route-to-consumer => Unilever lacks Kellogg's power in the impulse channel… which is why I have not been able to find it to try it
3. On-shelf dominance => Kellogg's dominate, and Marmite will struggle to get seen
4. High, sustained investment =>  Kellogg's bars have a share of voice of 75% in cereal bars… will Marmite be able to make much of a dent in this with their posters?

Net, feels like a good example of not following the money. I struggle to see how this is going to be a viable business. Not because brand stretch. But because there is not a sustainable business model to make it work. Don't expect to see it on the shelves in a year's time.