Beige is the new brown

In what has become a prof0undly tired marketing trope Kraft, purveyors of Vegemite, have launched a bizarre new variant to their ever popular brand – a cheesy blend called iSnack2.0 – and then withdrawn it in the face of ‘public hostility’. But why go to the cost and effort of staging such a lame stunt? Kraft should instead follow the example of Michael LeVell, who plays Kevin Webster in Coronation Street. He’s threatened to quit if the character doesn’t dump his girlfriend and go back to his cancer-stricken wife. No icky new product, no idiotic, early-Noughties name, no fake outrage. Instead LeVell provides the dud product (the infidelity) and the shocked reaction (threat of resignation) in the space of a few sentences. And at Christmas, Kevin goes back to Sally, and we get the chastened climbdown.

Give that man an iSnack2.0 sandwich now!

PS: Tate Modern follows suit, with the help of the Obscene Publications squad.