Time for Wrigley to put its money where its mind mouth is
For some reason, I get more nervous on planes now than I ever have, especially during takeoff and landing. Seasoned travellers would tell you that one of the most basic tricks is to chew gum during takeoff and landing. It’ll help prevent your ears from popping, and it might ease the tension. This is true regardless of the brand you choose, though Mars Wrigley would like its gum to be top of mind.
I mean this literally. Earlier this year the company that owns Extra and Freedent (among other brands) launched a TV spot where an office worker has an extra mouth appear on his forehead.
This “mind mouth” is a representation of the inner dialogue many of us are running at any given time, where worries and anxieties threaten to overtake us.
Mars Wrigley’s “Chew Good” campaign is an effort to reposition its gum as an antidote to mind mouth. By chewing its product, its marketing suggests, you can calm down and achieve a better degree of mental wellness.
This is not exactly the kind of customer experience chewing gum brands have promised in the past.
The way we chewed
Popping gum in your mouth at just the right moment has traditionally been lauded as a way to avoid bad breath when you’re going in for the kiss, or a way to snack between meals without spoiling your appetite.
As the Wall Street Journal pointed out this week, Mars Wrigley is likening chewing gum as a wellness experience. This may be in part due to an industry-wide estimated 33 per cent sales decline between 2018 and 2020.
That’s before the pandemic, which may have further weakened the habit, not to mention more recent inflationary pressures which have curbed impulse buying.
If chewing gum were a technology product, what Mars Wrigley is really doing in its marketing campaign is putting forward what’s called a new “use case.”
While the ads are new, in other words, the experience of chewing gum to quiet the mind has always been there – this is more about pointing it out or reminding consumers rather than introducing anything new.
Chew on this, CX leaders
Sometimes new use cases can be used an enhance or reinvent the customer experience, but you have to do more than spend millions of dollars on TV commercials.
Imagine if Mars Wrigley redesigned chewing gum packets to open more gently and quietly, for example, to suggest something akin to exhaling.
The packaging could include some tips on quelling anxiety or nervous thoughts, which people could read while they’re chewing the gum.
I could even picture Mars Wrigley partnering with a meditation app on chewing exercises to go along with some music and soft, AMSR-style soothing words.
Maybe eventually we’ll all associate chewing gum with combating our mind mouths. For real customer experience innovation, though, Mars Wrigley should act with greater ambition. It has yet to bite off more than it can chew.
