Paddington Bear is famous for eating marmalade, to be more precise, sandwiches with marmalade. It was therefore surprising that he was asked by Unilever to advertise Marmite.
“But I always eat marmalade sandwiches!”
“That’s why we want you for the advertising campaign. We want people to try something different than they usual eat.”
Paddington will of course never give up marmalade, but he wanted to try something different, so he advertised Marmite.
Controversy
Paddington Bear advertised Marmite in 2007 and 2008 and created controversy in Britain. Michael Bond, the creator of Paddington had to defend himself against accusations that he had betrayed Paddington, by allowing the famous character from Darkest Peru dumped his beloved marmalade for Marmite.
The deal between Unilever and the Paddington Bear license holder Chorion ran out early 2009 and wasn’t renewed. Marmite stated: “”It was always intended that Paddington Bear was just trying Marmite in his sandwiches, for a change. Whilst he really enjoyed it, he will be going back to his traditional favourite, marmalade, in the future, and Marmite is moving on to new things!”