A n d r e w s G u m W o r l d

PHOTOS (from Flickr and from the left):  Wall of gum, originally uploaded by Mr. Bowman;
Bottom bracket, originally uploaded by Brett L.; Pigs with lipstick, originally uploaded by megpi.

The Huffington Post and one of its columnists, Dan Dorfman, wrote yesterday about the current stock market rally, which has got its own slangy nickname that we’re awfully fond of here at AndrewsGumWorld, and that is “chewing gum rally.”

While it’s nice to be hopeful about the stock market in times like these, Dorfman quotes one online investment advisor, Mark Leibovit, who urges caution. Here’s what Dorfman wrote yesterday online (with a metphor from Leibovit that leaps from chewing gum to baling wire and, yes, lipsticked pigs):

Still, there are a lot of non-believers, among them crack online investment adviser Mark Leibovit of VRTrader.com, headquartered in Sedona, Ariz. “The market is being held together with chewing gum and baling wire,” he says. “It’s a chewing gum rally that has little chance of sticking. It’s like trying to put lipstick on a pig; that just doesn’t work.”

DLF INDIAN PREMIER LEAGUE LOGO,
originally uploaded by iVinay.

Last month, India’s Business Standard covered Wrigley’s sponsorship of all eight franchise teams in the Indian Premier League for April’s T20 tournament in South Africa.

According to the article, the new deal should further expand the reach and impact of Wrigley gum on Indian gum chewers:

“Wrigley has entered into separate sponsorship agreements with the eight IPL franchise teams. Our sugar free brand ‘Orbit’ would be the official ‘gum sponsor’ of all the teams and ‘Boomer’ would be the official bubble gum sponsor,” Wrigley India Pvt Ltd MD Gautam Sharma told reporters here.

He said the deals would be complimented by various promotional and advertising initiatives including special contests and prizes, fan trips to South Africa, electronic and print media campaigns and so on.

“We hope it will be a win-win partnership for both Wrigley and the IPL franchise teams. We expect our brands, which are already popular, to be further liked by the consumer following this,” Sharma said.

Wrigley has a portfolio of eight brands in India including Boomer, Orbit, Doublemint and Juicy Fruit and claims a market share of over 50 per cent in the estimated Rs 1,000 crore Indian chewing gum market.

“We sell 10 million pieces of gum every day and have a presence in 1.2 million retail stores across 2,000 towns and cities in India. The IPL initiative would further boost reach,” Sharma added.

Sweet!, originally uploaded by diluvienne.

walking on bubble gum, originally uploaded by camil tulcan.

PHOTO: Andrews University

Today is graduation day where I work, which means, of course, flags and degrees and endless smiles…but it also means, of course, chewing gum.

All of the above and then some….

 
gajol-gum_001, originally uploaded by Kristho.

PHOTO: Chicza Gum

If you’ve perused the post below, you may have noticed a short reference to an organic and biodegradable gum now available in stores in the UK. We, in turn, got curious and checked out the web to find out more, and found, among other things, a great podcast on the site Make Wealth History (you can listen to the podcast by clicking on the link at the end of this post), which includes the following details on this new gum from Mexico, Chicza:

It’s a great example of sustainable business, creating jobs in Mexico, stewarding the rainforests, and helping to solve the problem of urban staining here in the UK.

Chicza went on sale this week. Louise has been along to London’s Trafalgar Square to meet the directors and do a taste test, in this exclusive report for Make Wealth History.

We also checked out the website for Chicza which talked about how their approach to gum has provided a great, environmentally friendly resolution by creating a biodegradable chewing gum:

Currently, most mass-produced chewing gums use artificial, petrol-based polymers as substitutes for natural chicle. Even those few, very fine chewing gums that still have natural chicle use only small amounts of it and combine it with synthetic gums. That is why chewing gum is such an environmental and sanitary threat to cities all over the world: the polymers in gum bind very successfully with asphalt.

Chicza has nothing but natural, organic gum base, and therefore has all the virtuous features of this innocuous, hydrosoluble, non-sticky, biodegradable source. Easily decomposed by weathering, combined with bacterial and enzymatic biodegradation, it turns to dust and goes back to the soil, just like rotting wood, fallen leaves and other organic material.

Check out the Chicza website for more details on this new type of gum.

Podcast courtesy of makewealthhistory.org. Click here.

 
PHOTO:  Dumfries Civic Pride

Our friends (you can see some of them above) who make up the Dumfries Civic Pride group are, according to their website:

a group of Doonhamers who are proud of Dumfries, the historic town that gave rise to the names Bruce, Burns and Barrie.
We give up our spare time to make sure that you can be also be proud of your town.

We do this, in association with the Dumfries and Galloway Council, by promoting a well cared for environment, which provides businesses, tourists with the right message.

Our work includes:

…Clean-ups - Undertake litter and graffiti removal.

The latter goal that this group has set for itself has led to an audacious suggestion made earlier this week in the Dumfries and Galloway Standard, and that is to ban gum altogether from the UK, much as Singapore has done. As their frustrations increase in cleaning the town centre from discarded gum (yes, ’tis the season for AndrewsGumWorld stories on gum removal in the UK) has led them to write to their MPs to encourage them to take what the group sees as a necessary step.

In the article, group member Morris Service (a most excellent name for a group of this sort) explained the reasons behind their call for the criminalisation of the dropping of chewing gum to The Standard:

“The majority dispose of chewing gum responsibly but there were still those who left their discarded gum on the street, benches or on the back of seats on public transport.”He added: “While this seems a far reaching proposal, it comes with an increasing frustration at the impossible task of cleaning the sheer amount of chewing gum accumulating on our streets and pavements.

“Despite the efforts of Dumfries and Galloway Council employing contractors to remove chewing gum from parts of Dumfries town centre, at considerable expense, the problem has only been temporarily dealt with.”

The council has spent more than £1million on a major repaving project of Friars Vennel in Dumfries, which according to Mr Service is becoming littered with gum already.

In the same piece, a local MP, Russell Brown agreed with the challenges highlighted by the group, and called for local stores to carry biodegradable gum, recently introduced in England:

“I know gum stained pavements in Dumfries are a massive source of frustration for proud Doonhamers. But equally I know it is only the small minority who have no respect who throw their gum on the floor for someone else to come along and unknowingly tread it into the pavement.

“Last month an organic, biodegradable gum hit the shelves of supermarkets in the UK. So an alternative to banning gum – which could be difficult to enforce – could be to encourage local retailers to stock this natural substitute which does not stick to clothing or pavements.”