IMAGE: New York Times
Yesterday’s New York Times featured Dentyne’s new campaign designed at re-launching its Dentyne Ice brand and takes on, perhaps, an even larger issue than fresh breath — whether the Internet (which AndrewsGumWorld can only assume you’re using to read this) and technology are driving us further apart. It’s a worthy question, perhaps, and certainly an interesting one to tackle in a gum advertising campaign, but so Dentyne has. (Incidentally, Dentyne has also launched down a companion website, makefacetime.com, that shuts down after three minutes — you can even edit the clock that counts down your time to look like an egg timer, alarm clock or odometer and more — to make sure that we get back to our lives)
Here are some details from the Times article:
BORED subway riders and air travelers in major American cities might have noticed — right around the time they were itching to get back on an Internet connection — a series of ads encouraging them to “power down, log off, unplug … make face time.”
The brand with the temerity to tell us to disconnect from our totally wired lives? Dentyne chewing gum.
The campaign, called “Make face time,” was created by McCann Erickson for Dentyne, a brand owned by Cadbury, the No. 2 gum maker in the United States after Wrigley. The ads feature happy people embracing and kissing — their breath presumably freshened by Dentyne — as an alternative to pounding their BlackBerrys or sending electronic messages to their Facebook friends.
…people under 20 are the most avid gum chewers, the industry says, and the Dentyne campaign touches on the explosion in digital tools that help those young people connect, share and network. But it also seeks to make customers stop and question whether all that online communication is really making them closer.
“Everyone loves technology and everyone uses it,” said Josette Barenholtz, the marketing director for Dentyne. “What’s meaningful is being reminded that being face to face can’t be substituted.”
That strategy could be a gamble, as the ads focus on exactly the people who are most passionate about these digital tools.
