First Timers - Marmite, Unilever | Clapboard Ad Archive
Marmite’s First Timers campaign, created by adam&eveDDB for Unilever in Year 2023, marks an audacious reset of the yeast extract icon’s cultural status with UK Gen Z. Responding directly to YouGov research that 43% of 18-24 year olds in the UK have never sampled the spread, First Timers seizes the Freshers’ week zeitgeist—a critical moment of youthful experimentation and peer-to-peer influence—to position Marmite trial as a bold rite of passage. At the heart of the campaign is a 60-second hero film featuring two ingeniously designed puppets who navigate the tactile, sensory mechanics of trying Marmite on toast for the first time, guided by a series of suggestive, tongue-in-cheek prompts that slyly parody the language of intimacy and first experiences. The film is propelled by a punchy, specially remixed electro soundtrack by Giraffage, meshing underground music cues with mass-market humor to lock in attention. This approach sits squarely in Clapboard’s FORMAT#1—Demonstration category, foregrounding the act of consuming Marmite in ways both instructive and subversively entertaining, ensuring that viewers understand not just the mechanics but the playful spirit of trying Marmite for the first time. The omnichannel rollout is tightly targeted: on-campus sampling kits put the product in thousands of young hands at UK universities, while a TikTok challenge—Are you a Marmite First-Timer?—and a Tinder quiz—Sticky Situations—extend the campaign’s reach into the daily social and digital routines of Gen Z, leveraging playful, provocative language to break down barriers and trade on the product’s famously divisive reputation. The campaign’s endline, Love it. Hate it. Get it on., sidesteps the binary debate to reframe participation as the act that matters, normalizing curiosity and inviting first-timers to self-identify and share their initiation into the cult of Marmite. The campaign earns 72/100 in Clapboard’s global creative archive. This work is a signal to brands across the food and drink category that reframing trial as a culturally relevant experience—rather than an obligation—can revive heritage products for new generations when executed with wit and strategic precision.
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