April Fool’s Day is a real ‘moment’ for brands – almost the Superbowl of social. Marmite wanted a share of that. Something that really cut through and engaged. However, as this brief came in at the end of the financial year the production budget also seemed like an April Fool…we had zero to spend.

With anything that people really, really love, when they can’t get it they need something to satisfy that craving - or they just go crazy.

Introducing Marmite Patches. Perfect for when you want Marmite but can’t get Marmite. Just stick it on and get your Marmite hit.

Of course, the reality was Marmite Patches were nothing more than a branded sticking plaster. But this was April Fool’s and we had no money to spend.

In social, the battle for attention is hard fought. So with no budget for production, creative, PR etc. the only way of generating reach was through our community of followers.

This shaped our approach. But to succeed we had to give our fans something they might want to share. And to do this we had to give them three things:

1. Do something plausible enough to be credible – even if odd

2. Make sure it’s directly associated with your product (it's why people care enough to follow you)

3. Make it funny enough that people might bother to share

In addition, like any good lie, a good April Fool needs to have an element of plausibility – and our insight came straight out of the Marmite brand truth: that lovers of Marmite can’t manage without a Marmite fix.

By tradition April Fool’s only last for the morning so we had very little time to make an impact. We also wanted to genuinely trick people - and we also had no money to spend.

So to make Marmite Patches feel like they were really real we deliberately avoided brand or marketing gloss. Instead we recruited Marmite lovers to create UGC of Marmite Patches being worn in a series of ridiculously believable scenarios where getting Marmite just wasn’t possible. So stuck on a long haul flight, working outside the UK or even going to a wedding.

This content was then re-shared by Marmite across Instagram, Facebook and X. So that the whole thing felt incredibly natural and really made people stop and think twice. Were Marmite Patches for real?

Our authentic and organic approach paid off. With zero spent on production or promotion Marmite Patches absolutely destroyed the category benchmarks for engagement across every platform they were shared on.

On Instagram we hit 10 times the category benchmark for engagement.

On Facebook it was 45 times.

And on X we achieved over 300 times the category benchmark.

The reaction on social also showed how much people had fallen for Marmite Patches with comments such as:

Rosalind Lee: This has to be one of the best April Fools ever…well done Marmite.

Armchairbob: Boo if only someone could make them for real😂

Andy Coyle: I’d never take mine off😂

GillHalifax: 👏Brilliant April 1st.

E5_ther: April 1st has been well played.

Torydickinson1: You’re marketing teams the best. Pity they’re only a one day special.😂😂😂

Cynthia Hiley: Thought this was hilarious, one of the best April fools day spoofs I’ve seen.