Gum Brand Goes Pop

Hit songs have been used to promote products for as long as anyone can remember, which appears to be the case in the latest Doublemint Gum spot featuring R&B singing sensation Chris Brown and his latest chart topping hit “Forever”. However the music for “Forever” was actually created for the ad first as opposed to an ad capitalizing on a song that had become a hit. In the continuing battle to get consumers attention in new ways, what we’re witnessing here is part of the ongoing convergence of advertising and entertainment into new forms of branded entertainment.

For years, even dating back to the early days of television, we’ve seen deferent forms of branded entertainment, especially in the movies. Usually we see it in the form of very subtle product placements, with a product mention here or a logo there, the exception being Michael Bay’s The Island which went placement overboard to help fund the film.

The Doublemint example is different though, because the music for “Forever” was actually written for the new Doublemint spot first and then extended with new lyrics for the hit song while retaining the line “Double Your Pleasure, Double You Fun”. Not only was that line kept in the lyrics, but in the video’s opening scene shows Chris Brown popping a stick of Doublemint Gum into his mouth just before entering the dance club. The whole thing was a well planned out tactic to get Doublemint inserted into popular culture, and it worked.

This spot is part of a three spot campaign designed to inject energy into Wrigley’s three major gum brands, Doublemint, Big Red and Juicy Fruit by using popular recording artists in highly stylized, upbeat ads. But only the Doublemint campaign transcends advertising and directly influences pop culture, even if very few people actually realize that they’re dancing to a gum ad.

Credit the strategic minds at Translation Advertising who, according to The Wall Street Journal, produced the campaign as part of their idea to contract popular recording artists to help write and conceive songs that would promote products and receive airplay. Their first attempt to do this failed when a new McDonald’s “I’m Love’n It” jingle was recorded by Justin Timberlake, but the song was never added to his album or released to radio stations. With Brown they tried it again with original music and nailed it.

With the success of the Forever/Doublemint Gum experiment, will we see more efforts like this? Do we even want to see more of this? The answer to the first part is yes we most likely will; the answer to the second part is yes if it’s done as well as this, but we’ll most likely see plenty of botched efforts to go with the good ones. I’m willing to bet none as successful as this, in the mean time you hear Chris Brown and can’t resist breaking into a step or two, try not to swallow your gum.

Jake Crocker is a Partner and Brand Marketing Director at Martin Branding Worldwide, Inc.

I’m A PC, You’re a PC, Everyone’s A PC!

Well Microsoft has done it; right when I was ready to start criticizing their new marketing efforts, they completely turn it around with the new I’m a PC campaign for their Windows operating system. This campaign immediately follows the bewildering Microsoft corporate ads staring Jerry Seinfeld paling around with Bill Gates (proving Larry David was the real genius behind Seinfeld) and their poorly thought out ads for the Mohave, uh I mean Vista operating system (effectively reminding everyone that people think Vista sucks rather than otherwise).

I must admit the I’m a Mac campaign Apple has been running over the past couple years has been one of the more effective consumer product campaigns. This campaign contributed heavily to Apple’s rapid gain in market share against their Microsoft Windows operating PC competitors both in the US and Worldwide. The campaign painted PC as difficult, inferior and just not cool or with it, while at the same time portraying Mac as cool, calm and collective personality who is with it. The stereotypes were dead on and of course everyone wanted to be the Mac guy and not the nerdy PC guy. All the wile Microsoft sat back and absorbed the blows while Apple kept the campaign rolling.

So when it was announced several months ago that Microsoft hired hot Miami ad shop Crispin Porter + Bogusky, I was very interested to see how the firm that put some life into Burger King and the edge back in Volkswagen would handle the bland brand Microsoft’s Windows operating system had become. The solution, directly address the PC stereotype and then rebuild the Windows brand by clearly and compellingly demonstrating that PC is in fact the computer of and for everyone and force Mac back into the niche market box it lived in through most of the 90’s and early 2000’s.

This new approach works for one simple reason, it speaks the truth. Although I’m personally caught in between both brands by sitting here typing away on my MacBook that’s running a Windows XP operating system (yes, you can do that now), the truth is the vast majority of computer users are still using PC’s running Windows at home and at work. These are not all geeky computer guys, although those are the guys that usually fix them (see my blog on Geek Squad), these are people of all ages, sexes, interests, professions, political opinions, levels of creativity, styles of facial hair, celebrity status and apparently even those who express that creativity by “challenging” the law.

The PC and therefore the Windows operating system by Microsoft is truly the brand of everyone and this campaign absolutely nails that position. The position is clear and the execution is outstanding, not only just with the new series of TV spots, but with the matching internet ad campaign and the new windows.com website where PC users can upload pictures of themselves as a chance for everyone to tell the world that “I’m a PC”.

Jake Crocker is a Partner and Brand Marketing Director at Martin Branding Worldwide, Inc.