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Crucified, then resurrected? The Drum interviews Aussiemite’s Elise Ramsey after the “Sacrilicious” firestorm

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By Steven Raeburn, N/A

June 3, 2013 | 6 min read

Aussiemite director Elise Ramsey has been up since 3.00am, and is ready to acknowledge that the well worn aphorism about politics and religion is well founded, after personally firefighting the potential PR crisis that erupted following the coverage of brand‘s ‘Sacrilicious’ campaign over the last 24 hours.

Aussiemite director, Elise Ramsey

“I’ve probably responded to over a thousand emails,” Elise Ramsey told The Drum.“The more it escalates the worse it seems to be getting. It has been unbelievable. There is a reason people say don’t bring up religion or politics at the dinner table. There is something in that…”The reason for her email marathon and all night candle burning is the online furore that kicked off overnight, as a firestorm of online protest began to gather in response to (in part) Aussiemite’s latest advertising campaign, which unfolds in a religious setting, and the subsequent coverage of the brand’s apology. The incident has proven to be a practical road test of the theory that there is no such thing as bad publicity.“We didn’t mean to cause harm and thought the ad was quite funny,” she told The Drum.“Has it been a successful campaign? We’ve had such a mixed response. We have had people call us to say: ‘We loved the ad, good on you’, and the absolute reverse, we’ve had death threats. So we have had two polarised extremes.”It put Elise and her team running the family business in the middle of a crisis PR situation, and it can clearly be seen from Aussiemite’s twitter account (@Aussiemite) that a direct approach has been favoured, with each critic being answered directly and personally, and a clear assumption of responsibility accepted at the outset.“We felt the best thing to do as a company, the ethical thing to do, would be to apologise because we didn’t mean to cause harm, and especially not to hurt people,” Elise said.“We did our very best, and that is the best we can do as a business. Because of the reaction and the unfortunate adversity it has created, we all would have had second thoughts. We would not have launched the ad if we had thought it was going to get such a response.” Despite having been hauled over the coals of religiously fuelled ire in public, she adds that there has been a valuable, sanguine lesson learned as a result of the direct, immediate engagement with those who have challenged the ‘challenger’ brand.“The good thing is, I’ve been amazed that out of the thousand people I have personally emailed and said sincerely sorry for any offence caused, who have emailed me pages of dialogue saying: ‘Why would you do this you have offended our entire religion’, I have taken the time to email them all personally and responded very quickly, and they have really appreciated that, and said: ‘thank you, we support Australian businesses and support smaller companies and acknowledge that you are doing the right thing - we will buy your product and continue to support you’.“If anything, that has been the best thing that could have happened. I am grateful that the people who were hurt and offended were open to us, saying to us ‘you have done the wrong thing, we acknowledge that’.”It has been a long night and day for Elise Ramsey, involving not only responding to those offended by the campaign, but shepherding relations with the agency who designed the campaign, Grown-Ups, amidst conflicting reports that the creative team had been fired, opening up another front of firefighting to be undertaken. Whilst it is too early to address what work Aussiemite and Grown Ups may undertake in the future, Elise is clear that the company is standing firm with the agency over the creative, and is taking the flak itself.“We are not blaming Grown Ups for this. We take full responsibility,” she told The Drum.“The ad was issued, it was launched and this is what happened. Its important that when things like this happen you work together as team to help create the best possible outcome for all parties involved so that the customer is left in some way not feeling completely shattered and empty. That’s the last thing we want. “We just have to be the bigger person. We have genuinely hurt people. Its important that when things go wrong, even when you don’t intend harm, that you are respectful. We’ve asked all the channels that have aired the ad to pull the ad down, and taken as many steps as possible to resolve the issue. Its just really unfortunate that is gotten so out of control.”Having endured its own baptism of fire over the campaign, Elise is keen for the ’challenger’ brand to stand on its merits and make its own inroads into the sector currently dominated by Vegemite, and - in the UK- by Marmite, although gaining equal footing in the market is proving to be handful.“From a brand perspective, it has great potential. But it is so hard. We are on the bottom shelf at Waitrose, Marmite is cheaper. We really are up against it, she said.“We have one shelf facing against nine shelf facings of Marmite. All the tactics are there. And we are just a tiny little company, David against Goliath,” she adds, reminding us somewhat ruefully, that biblical references are always helpful illustrators.

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