Pizza Hut May Be In Big Trouble With Vegemite For That Pizza They Casually Made With Their Product

We’ve only had a little over a week to comprehend the supremely unnecessary gluttony that is a pizza crust stuffed full of cheese and Vegemite. Now, for better or worse (better), it may be in trouble.

Local purveyor of molten cheese discs and suspicious jelly cubes covered in children’s fingerprints and phlegm, Pizza Hut have now removed their ad for the Mitey Stuffed Crust pizza from Youtube as well as various pieces of marketing from their website and social media.

Mumbrella are reporting this is because Vegemite may well have stepped in and laid down the law.

“For legal reasons, Pizza Hut is currently reviewing all imagery relating to the promotion of the Mitey Stuffed Crust Pizza,” Pizza Hut said in a statement. The spokesperson couldn’t give us more information or clarification than that, however they did confirm the pizza was still available in stores.

Vegemite, its brand and logo — white writing outlined in black on a red and yellow background — are all trademarked by its parent company Mondelez International.

Representatives of Mondelez have been contacted for comment but are yet to reply. However they have issued the following statement to Mumbrella: “While we can’t comment on specific matters; as the custodians of one of Australia’s most loved and iconic brands, Vegemite, we take brand protection extremely seriously. We take all appropriate action and work diligently to protect our intellectual property when the need arises.”

All things considered, it seems like there’s a good chance this whole campaign — one which was founded on the use of a trademarked product, then heavily borrowed from that product’s branding and colour scheme and finished with an ad about a bunch of people from around the world saying how gross that product is — was never actually approved by Vegemite.

Awkward.

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Update 29/01/2015:

Mondelez International have now confirmed these suspicions, supplying us with the following statement:

“We can confirm we are currently  in discussion with Pizza Hut regarding the unauthorised use of the Vegemite brand in their marketing. Vegemite is one of the most loved and trusted Brands in Australia. As the custodian of the Vegemite Brand we go to great lengths to ensure that any brand association is carefully assessed prior to granting approval.

Companies that associate themselves with or leverage off our brand without authorisation will be aggressively pursued. We take the protection of our brands extremely seriously and will take all measures available to us to ensure the continued love and trust in the Vegemite brand that our consumers expect.”

Awww, shit.