I sent this email to my friends at Marmite UK.
Good
morning.
How
are you?
Some
time ago you ran a campaign which may be regarded as successful with the adage “Marmite,
love it or hate it”. I, however, fall into neither camp. I regularly consume
your product, but it is not one about which I would enthuse or be moved to
tears of ecstasy in describing.
I
am far less ambivalent, however, about the preponderance of the harbinger of
the apocalypse that is your “Big Squeezy” container. There are insufficient
existing words to describe the opprobrium which this abomination arouses in me,
but I will share a modicum of them with you, if you will indulge me.
I
am an autodidact when it comes to the use of your commodity. I do not possess a
training manual, neither have I attended evening classes. Through arduous
practice I have deduced that it is possible to extract (geddit?) marmite from
your excellent glass jars by using a knife or similar implement. The knife has
to be narrow enough to fit through the neck of the jar and not so sharp as to
result in the obliteration of the toast when the substance is spread. The shape
of the bottle and the consistency of the comestible allow almost all of the
contents to be successfully removed, eventually. It is not a carefully
calculated operation; experience suffices to judge whether an approximate
measure has been extricated. I am so adept at this exercise that I seldom give
it much thought. The outcome of this is that, from your perspective, there is a
happy customer.
Of
late, however, these fine glass jars, unsung and seemingly merely utilitarian,
are not available at my local Sainsbury’s. Instead they have been replaced by
these plastic plagues. (Your product is available in the smaller jars, which
are neither economical nor large enough to contain enough Marmite to cover one
of Mrs McTavish’s Organic Highland Oatcakes). Having learnt to use the
traditional container, I do not wish to devote any of the time remaining to me
in this world in trying to guess how to use it. Is it supposed to be inverted
and squeezed thereby making impossible any attempt to judge the quantity
required? What happens when the container is 75% empty - how hard will I have
to squeeze to get the last bit out? So, let’s admit we have had enough of this
nonsense and dispense with these plastic horrors forthwith.
As
a large international conglomerate, I suspect that you have a large annual
intake of graduates from our fine academic establishments, each one brandishing
a third class degree in the economics of the cellphone or some such. These fine
people, not so much educated as Goved, begin their careers with you in the hope
that, one day, they will be promoted and have a salary increase that will
result in a reduction in their net pay as they begin to repay their crippling
student loans. You are kind enough to offer them shelter, a chair, a computer
terminal, perhaps free beverages and an eight week course in how to use the sum
function in Excel. They are cosseted by your kindness and distracted from the
Bleak New World’s rising violence, environmental pollution and emptiness for a
few hours each week. The rest of us are grateful to you for taking these people
off of the streets and giving them something futile to do as they await an old
age and funeral which they will not be able to afford. However, in their midst
is some bright spark who came up with the idea of the Big Squeezy. I urge you
to find this person, and in a very loving and tolerant manner explain to them
that their purpose is not to come up with new ideas, particularly damn silly
ones. The microprocessor, wind turbines and the Dilshan Scoop have already been
invented and their efforts to improve the world will not turn out well. Sedate
them if necessary and, should they be intelligent enough to understand, explain
that the purpose of modern education is not to stimulate creativity but rather
to create a passive and grateful workforce.
I
checked to see whether Lord Lever or anyone else I knew was available to be
sent this communication. I note that your chief marketing officer is Keith
Weed. Is this a case of nominative determinism? Was he gently sitting in his
office one day when the idea of the plastic container for Marmite was muted and
responded through a foggy haze, “Yeah, man, far out!”? I sincerely hope not.
So,
dear friend, oblige me by stamping out this atrocity. When Lord Sainsbury or
one of his gormless lackies ‘phones through with their weekly order, explain to
them without flinching that the public have spoken and Marmite will be encased
in glass, and glass alone henceforth.
Love
and peace
