A good ending to a good run
The four-year partnership between Marmite and the Elton John AIDS Foundation wrapped earlier this year, and with the benefit of a few months’ distance it is clear that this one was, by some way, the best charity tie-up the brand has done. Over £1 million raised for EJAF, four limited-edition jars, four sold-out runs, and a final jar that I think is genuinely the best of the lot.
The final jar, released in June and now mostly out of circulation, features Sir Elton in his Dodger Stadium baseball outfit from 1975. White and silver sequins, the famous “EJ” stitched onto the front of the shirt, peak Captain Fantastic era. The design treatment puts him three-quarter-on against the Marmite black, and the result is, frankly, a thing of beauty. The jar is titled “I’m Still Standing”. The title was, presumably, picked by someone with an excellent sense of humour about what a four-year partnership with a yeast extract company looks like at the end.
What it raised, and what it took to raise it
A pound from every limited-edition jar went to EJAF. Across the four releases, the total cleared £1 million. That is not enormous in the league table of corporate-charity tie-ups, but it is real money, and it was raised quietly and without much corporate fanfare, which is the bit I respect.
The jars sold quickly, mostly because Elton fans bought them as collectibles rather than as Marmite, but the fact that Marmite fans also bought them is the more interesting story. The brand has a small, loyal collector community for limited-edition jars. They will hunt down a sensible cause attached to a jar more reliably than they will hunt down a clever flavour collaboration. This is useful information for whoever ends up running the brand next.
My quiet declaration of interest
I should be in there too. I did tonnes of stuff for Marmite from its 100th anniversary in 2002 until life got too hectic, including some collector-jar adjacent work, so I am not pretending to be a neutral observer of jar design. With that confession out of the way, the Elton series is genuinely the strongest collector run Marmite has done in twenty-five years. The first three were good. The Dodger Stadium one is excellent ;)
Why this collaboration worked when others have not
Marmite has done a lot of partnerships. Some have been great, some have been not great. The pattern that emerges, looking back across the last fifteen years, is that the great ones share two qualities.
The first is genuine cultural fit. Elton John is loud, divisive, much-loved, and frequently dismissed by people who do not get the joke. Marmite is loud, divisive, much-loved, and frequently dismissed by people who do not get the joke. The brand fit is immediate and self-explanatory, which is more than can be said for the average celebrity tie-up.
The second is a real cause. EJAF is not a vanity foundation. It funds HIV and AIDS research and patient services worldwide. A pound per jar is not a token gesture if the run is large enough, and over four years the run was large enough.
The ones that have not worked, by contrast, have tended to either chase a fleeting cultural moment (the various Royal Wedding jars) or to attach a charity that is fine but uncharismatic. The Elton run had both ingredients right.
What this means for the next collector jar
Marmite will do another celebrity collaboration. The Dodger Stadium jar is not the end of the format, only the end of this run. Whatever McCormick decides to do with the brand once the deal closes, collector jars are too cheap and too well-loved to drop.
The question is whether the next partnership has the same instincts. The best collector jars do two things: they give a clever fan something they actually want to own, and they raise serious money for a cause that fits. The bar that Elton just set is reasonably high. We will see who clears it.
For now, if you have a Dodger Stadium jar on your shelf with the seal still intact, hang on to it. It is the strongest design Marmite have put out in this format. It is also, you might mention to visitors, worth a million pounds, give or take.
