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

IMAGE: Media.

Clemenger BBDO, an ad agency in Australia, has helped Wrigley plunge into the world of social media by creating The 5 Feed, a website designed to help the gum company “connect with young people who increasingly demand digital involvement and greater creativity; ‘an audience that is seeking, sharing and remixing culture.’”

In a piece earlier this summer in Media, it described the agency’s creation of The 5 Feed site, “a social platform that invites the public to download and remix works from commissioned Australian designers, artists and musicians.”

 You can explore that site, and do your own remixing of culture, here.

ps Wrigley 5 gum flavo(u)r translation guide from the Land Down Under:

Pulse (Australia) = Lush (North America)

Electro = Rain

Cobalt = Cobalt

Baby Ruth Gum, originally uploaded by Waffle Whiffer.

No Chewing Gum Today, originally uploaded by Mediachaos.

IMAGE: Wrigley.

Since we were last here, we’ve had a chance to review several cogent and worthy discourses (along with great diagrams) on how gum is produced, and we thought we’d slip in the links here (including two Flash videos, courtesy of Chewing Gum Associations — of International and Japan fame):

How gum is made, Wrigley

How gum is made, International Chewing Gum Association

How gum is made, Chewing Gum Association of Japan

IMAGE: madehow.com

We’ll confess that it’s been a while since AndrewsGumWorld has deconstructed gum as something other than a cultural force, a litter problem, and/or a creative inspiration for  commercials, photography, advertising and blissful bubbles.

So, we pause for a moment to  remind ourselves where gum comes from (chicle, originally, but not so much any more…unless you buy Glee Gum).

While the image above may not be the perfect recipe (exactly how much chicle do you harvest….how long do you dry it and how hot is the air….and where, exactly, do you get those big pots?), but madehow.com has a great article on how modern chewing gum is made, including this nearly exact accounting of the ingredients to your modern stick of gum:

Federal regulations allow a typical list of ingredients on a pack of chewing gum to read like this: gum base, sugar, corn syrup, natural and/or artificial flavor, softeners, and BHT (added to preserve freshness). This vagueness is mainly due to the chewing gum manufacturers’ insistence that all materials used are part of a trade secret formula.

There’s a lot more detail to be found in the article, including the height of chicle trees (32.79 yards tall) and the importance of centrifuges, greased wooden molds, the exact size of a stick of gum (1.3″ x .449″) and more.

Chew on this, as they say….

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.