Australia makes news in the US

Very rarely does news from Australia make the journey all the way to our fair shores. But the New Vegemite debate has been deemed worthy of a NY Times Article. Basically, Kraft announced a new vegemite spread which is a mix of vegemite and cream cheese (sounds delicious already). The asked people to give suggestions for a name and eventually landed on iSnack 2.0 (now that puts a bad taste in my mouth). The public was outraged, Kraft ran an online poll and renamed the new spread cheesymite.

Now this is all interesting from a marketing perspective, but I'm more interested in it from the pride Australians take in Vegemite. I'll be the first to admit that it's an aquired taste. Resembling in sight, smell and taste salty leftover beer, it took me a while to grow to love it. But Australians are passionate about it. It's a national icon. It has a song.

I love that when I googled for the song the second link was a clip from Good News Week (one of my favorite programs in oz) in which the entire audience breaks out into the Vegemite song. That's how into it Australians are. Do we, as Americans, have something similar? The Oscar Mayer song? And as my officemate points out, why don't kids know how to spell bologna if this song is so popular.