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INTRODUCTION Vegemite is a well-known Australian spread that comes from brewer’s yeast, which is one of the richest natural sources of Vitamin B (Vegemite n.d.). The brand was created in 1923 when the Fred Walker Company tasked a chemist to create a spread involving brewer’s yeast (Vegemite n.d.). For several years, Vegemite was owned by Mondelez International (IBISWorld 2017). However, in 2017, Bega Cheese, a well-known Australian dairy company acquired Vegemite, along with other KRAFT products for a total of $460 million (Robins 2017). Moreover, Vegemite is a brand with an unobservable quality, which makes it difficult for the brand to reach out to different markets, especially those who do not have the motivation to try the product. Therefore, Vegemite relies on leveraging secondary associations in order to build more brand equity. Vegemite is able to take advantage of those entities in order to gain more brand awareness, thus increasing their brand salience. Although the brand has had successful attempts on leveraging secondary associations, it still requires some improvement in order to fully increase their brand entity. CO-BRANDING Vegemite has partnered with several brands to increase brand awareness. However, some of these brand alliances were not successful. For instance, in 2016, Cadbury released a Vegemite flavoured chocolate bar (Delaney 2016). When forming a brand alliance, both brands must be strong, favourable and unique and have sufficient brand equity separately (Keller 2013, p. 243). However, both brands must still be a logical fit for each other in order to have a successful co-brand (Uggla 2004, p. 107). While Cadbury and Vegemite are two successful brands and have high brand awareness, the two are not a logical pair. Cadbury is known to sell sweets, specifically chocolates, while Vegemite is known to be used as a spread for savoury products. In fact, there are reviews that show that Cadbury and Vegemite are not a good pair (Delaney 2016). On the other hand, one logical brand alliance that Vegemite had was with Smith’s Chips. In 2011, Smith’s Chips has released a Vegemite flavoured potato chips (Pedestrian TV 2011). With this brand alliance, there have been more positive feedback on this collaboration (Pedestrian TV 2011). This may be because Vegemite collaborated with a brand that actually complements their product, resulting in a harmonious flavour. Because Smith’s Chips is a fairly flexible brand in terms of having multiple flavours of crisps, it can easily extend its entity to other brands, such as Vegemite. Overall, by partnering with

Cadbury and Smith’s Chips, Vegemite was able to use the complementarity strategy as it was able to enhance the flavour of both products (Hoeffler & Keller 2002, pp. 83-84).

CELEBRITY ENDORSEMENTS Many celebrities have talked about their positive experiences with Vegemite in different talk shows (see Appendix). Also, athletes such as professional golfer So Yeon Ryu, Australia’s top ranked tennis player and Australian cheerleaders Laurie Lawrence and Dave Hughes have mentioned and/or collaborated with Vegemite (Hayes 2018, Narooma News 2012 & Holmes 2017). These celebrities have a high following rate, which can also help Vegemite’s brand awareness to increase. For example, in the Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, Hugh Jackman teaches the host on the “right way” to use Vegemite (Grossman 2015). Because of this, Hugh Jackman was able to spread awareness about the brand, and potentially convincing some of the audience to try the spread. Because of the diversity of the celebrity endorsers (i.e. having different endorsers of different nationalities), Vegemite is able to target international consumers. SPONSORSHIPS In 2012, Vegemite sponsored the Australian Olympic team in the London Olympics. Moreover, Vegemite became the “official ballkid partner of the Grand Slam tennis tournament” in the 2018 Australian Open (Holmes 2017). By using the commonality strategy, Vegemite has increased its associations with the country of Australia. Because of this, consumers will have a mental association to the country (Keller 2013, p. 233). As a result, Vegemite can increase their brand salience. Moreover, because of linking their brand to sponsorships, particularly to athletes, the brand can increase its brand performance. Because of its partnership with Australian athletes, it is able to reach out to the athletic market and it is able to properly advertise its main focus, which is vitality, and its richness in Vitamin B (Holmes 2017). RECOMMENDATIONS 1. Have the right co-brand – While forming alliances with successful brands is important, it is also important to partner with a brand that actually meshes well with the flavour of their product, such as a brand that sells biscuits or crackers. It is known that Vegemite is mainly used as a spread for toast or biscuits (4CreativesHD 2017). Therefore, it is logical that Vegemite partners with these kinds of brands. It builds more brand equity as before as

the flavours of the two products actually work together and because of this, more people will be inclined to buy the product rather than being repelled from it. However, one thing to note is that Vegemite must find a brand that is already strong, favourable and unique in order to maximise its brand entity and its value to the brand. 2. Focus on Athlete/Health Icon Collaboration – Although Vegemite has already started on doing this, it is important that the brand continues to choose the right people to endorse their product. Because of its focus on vitality, it is best that Vegemite collaborate on athletes and famous health icons to endorse their products. This is so that consumers will not question the motives of the brand and the celebrity (Keller 2013, p. 253). However, it is important to collaborate with a celebrity (i.e. athlete/health icon) who is a firm believer and has the same values as the brand. In this case, it is best to continue to pair with Australian athletes as the brand is already strongly associated with the country. If the brand decides to partner with athletes of different nationalities, the consumers might start to question the brand’s sincerity. CONCLUSION In conclusion, Vegemite has used partnerships with different brands and people to build more brand equity. It’s main source of secondary association, however, is co-branding, as it can easily enhance the flavour of many foods. The brand is able to build up their brand salience and performance through different ways of leveraging secondary sources. In particular, Vegemite was able to build its brand salience through celebrity endorsements and cobranding, while sponsorships of athletes helped increase its brand performance.

APPENDIX Celebrity Endorsements on Talk Shows 1. Hugh Jackman on Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon (Grossman 2015) 2. Ty Burrell on the Ellen Show (Chandra 2016) 3. Portia del Rossi (Ellen Degeneres’ wife) (Chandra 2016) 

Ellen Degeneres mentions to Ty Burrell on the same show that her Australian wife is fond of Vegemite

RESOURCES Chandra, J 2016, This is what happened when celebrities tried vegemite, viewed 24 April 2018,

Delaney, B 2016, Vegemite chocolate taste test: is Cadbury's new block awesome or evil, viewed 24 April 2018, Grossman, S 2015, Watch Hugh Jackman convince Jimmy Fallon that Vegemite is actually delicious, viewed 24 April 2018, Hayes, M 2018, So Yeon is a happy little Vegemite, viewed 18 April 2018,

Hoeffler, S & Keller KL 2002, ‘Building brand equity through corporate societal marketing’, journal of Public Policy & Marketing, vol. 21, no. 1, pp. 78-89. Holmes, E 2017, Australian Open signs Vegemite sponsorship deal, viewed 24 April 2018, < http://www.sportspromedia.com/news/australian-open-signs-vegemite-sponsorship-deal> IBISWorld 2017, Bega Cheese Limited, viewed 24 April 2018,

Keller, KL 2013, ‘Leveraging secondary brand associations to build brand equity’, in KL Keller (ed), Strategic brand management: Building, measuring, and managing brand equity 4th ed, Pearson Education, Inc, New Jersey, pp. 232-57 Kidman, A 2017, What vegemite teaches us about which supermarket is the cheapest, viewed 25 April 2018, Narooma News 2012, Wake up and smell the Vegemite this Olympic games, viewed 19 April 2018, Pedestrian TV 2011, Smith’s Vegemite-flavoured chips: A review, viewed 25 April 2018,

Robins, B 2017, Bega Cheese snaps up Vegemite as part of $460m deal, viewed 18 April 2018, Vegemite, n.d., Vegemite story, viewed 18 April 2018,

Uggla, H 2004, ‘The brand association base: A conceptual model for strategically leveraging partner brand equity’, Journal of Brand Management, vol 12, no. 2, pp. 105-123 4CreativeHDs 2017, Vegemite & Oreo: A co-branding, viewed 18 April 2018, < https://4creativehds.wordpress.com/2017/05/04/vegemite-oreo-a-co-branding/>...