Gums N’ Composers

Word of mouth marketing

What?: Confectionary company Wrigley’s is integrating its brand with music by inviting three contemporary artists to rework classic chewing gum jingles. R&B singers Ne-Yo and Chris Brown, along with country singer (and Dancing With The Stars regular) Julianne Hough, are all offering up remixes of signature commercial idents. Ne-Yo revisits Big Red’s “Kiss a little longer” jingle. Julianne Hough has recorded a country-tinged version of Juicy Fruit’s “The taste is gonna move ya” and Chris Brown has been commissioned to create two versions of the iconic Double Mint “Double your pleasure” jingle (first introduced in 1960).

Wrigley’s hosted a concert in New York on 29th July to unveil the new jingles, with an advertising campaign from New York’s Translation Advertising (run by rapper Jay-Z and Steven Stoute, a former senior executive at Interscope Records)

In April, Chris Brown’s record label, Jive, released a song entitled ‘Forever’ which became an instant hit. However, Brown had recorded another version of ‘Forever’ at a recording session funded by Wrigley’s, which remained secret until now. The lyrics are different, but the two are designed to blend seamlessly together. The 60-second ad will start with the original version of ‘Forever’ and then segment into the line: “Double your pleasure; double your fun. It’s the right one – Doublemint.”

“The idea was to connect the hit song and the jingle in listeners’ minds,” said Stoute. “That way, by the time the new jingle came out, it was already seeded properly within popular culture.” Paul Chibe, Wrigley’s VP for North American gum marketing, refers to the concept as “the future of the brand”.

So what?: Wrigley’s (seemingly covert) dual-marketing tactics with the Chris Brown ‘Forever’ track have come under a fair amount of criticism online. However, some comparisons need to be drawn here rather than applying a simple knee jerk reaction. Alicia Keys and Jack White have been sent into the recording studio this week to create the next James Bond theme; surely that’s as much of an advertisement as the Wrigley’s effort? Yet no one bats an eyelid. One imagines that the word ‘die’ (prevalent in so many 007 songs) was stipulated by the Bond franchise in much the same way ‘double your pleasure’ was in the gum track. If brands – increasingly becoming the primary investors in the new music economy – are prepared to back artists and produce quality output (of which the ‘Forever’ track clearly is), just what is the problem here? Well, there is a slight word of warning with regards to the delivery – the public at large don’t like to feel they have been tricked. Saatchi’s Honeyshot girlband (created in-house to market Shockwaves hair gel) fell foul of a similar plan just last year and was stripped from radio airplay.

“This campaign is a well integrated idea and works because the artist, label, and brand are working as collaborators. There is a legacy surrounding not ‘selling out’ – however, I stand firm and say there is little difference between brand intervention and reworking a mix 20 times because the A&R guy at the label isn’t happy with it not being ‘radio-friendly’ enough. I believe that for artists who want to derive revenue from their music, the notion of selling out is becoming increasingly redundant.”
Jack Horner, Creative Director, FRUKT

www.wrigley.com