Jim Croce knew what he was singing when he recorded “You Don’t Mess Around With Jim” in 1973:

“You don’t tug on superman’s cape

You don’t spit into the wind

You don’t pull the mask off that old lone ranger

And you don’t mess around with Jim”

Today Kraft Foods is facing the music after playing with Australia’s national snack spread – Vegemite. Following a marketing campaign to name a new, lighter Vegemite variant the company announced the winner yesterday. iSnack 2.0 is the name selected for the new Vegemite. It appears the selection was made following a whiz-bang marketing meeting involving creative geniuses paid by the hour. In other words, consumers hate it.

Writers from far afield as London have deplored the choice, as “Word of Mouth” at The Guardian comments:

“But to consider calling the Vegemite cheese spread “iSnack 2.0″… yes, that’s right … can only be the biggest steaming honker of an egregious publicity stunt in recorded history.”

Call me “Ishtar” but I do believe there were bigger failures – but you’d have to reach back to Edsel and “New Coke” to find one worse (Great article on New Coke: “It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time“). Said Coke’s recalcitrant boss:

‘We did not understand the deep emotions of so many of our customers for Coca-Cola.’

— DONALD R. KEOUGH, Coca-Cola president (1985)

But that was so…1985. Back then we had to write ‘Letters to the Editor’ and mail complaints to Atlanta, Georgia. Maybe we opened a can in front of a grocer and let it run into the gutter – in front of local television news. Things moved slowly then.

Kraft came out with iSnack 2.0 on Sunday. Today is Tuesday. Already blogs are on fire with disappointment, and the company has been forced to defend its choice. Talk about good PR gone bad!

In today’s age of immediacy it doesn’t take long for creative types to rubbish the product on blogs, mass-email friends, Twitter on the name and post hate videos – like this one.