Extra Gum: The save of the decade
If you have never heard of Wrigley's Extra Gum, no worries, cause so have the majority of the people who are asked. But if you were active on social media in 2016, you probably would have run into the two-minute chewing gum ad with the song Can't help falling in love Hailey Reinhart's version playing in the background somewhere on Facebook or Youtube. Little did Wrigley know, that one romantic, heartfelt commercial for their 'Give Extra, Get Extra' campaign was going to change everything.
In case you missed it (trust me, you would NOT want to miss it again), watch it here.
A quick recap
For those who are too busy to watch, here is all you need to know: A guy, a girl, one package of gum. This commercial is about 'The story of Sarah and Juan' - just like its name. It all started from their first encounter at the high school campus, continuing to their first date, first prom, their first fight, the first time being apart,... each time with the presence of the Extra Gum stick. Juan, the main male character, secretly draws their moments on the wrapper after each time. The romance reaches its climax when Sarah arrives at a gallery, surprised to see all their drawn-on-gum-wrappers-memories - the firsts - are all framed on the walls. And just when we thought it could not get any better, Juan is on one knee, proposing to Sarah. From high school sweethearts, the lovely couple is building a life together. I might have shed a tear or two, what a beautiful love story!
The born of the hit
Extra was at the top of the game in the 2000s. Everyone knew about Extra, everyone knew how the brand looked, until they stopped thinking about Extra. At the time Extra was experiencing a painful decline. By 2013, Extra had fallen to 3rd place in terms of market share and down compared to the previous years (Nielsen 2013). They tried rounds of creative testing with different types of ads, but nothing attracted the customers and made them remember about Extra (Extra n.d.).
Until Extra released the 'Give extra, Get extra' campaign with the 'The story of Sarah and Juan' commercial. They first released it as a 30-second TV advertisement, promoted the campaign heavily. But nothing worked. The TV ad did not help, showed in the continuous decrease in sales. The decline continued to happen for seven months (Doyle 2017). By that time, Extra made the game-changing decision: they released the full 2-minute version of the ad on YouTube.
Shortly after Extra posted the ad on social media, Ellen Degeneres (Yes! Ellen! The world-famous talk show host!) tweeted about it on Twitter to her 53 million followers, and that's when it exploded. Hundreds of thousands of people started to draw their sketches on the gum wrappers and shared their own stories on all kinds of platforms. Extra estimated the total potential impressions of those tweets are over 750 million (Extra n.d.)
On the Facebook platform, a page called Love What Matters reposted the video, earning it over 40 million views within 48 hours. So far the post has had over 1.5 million shares and 1.3 million likes. This is how I knew about Extra and the campaign, and so did many and many of my friends. How viral the video went on these social media platforms was an explosion that no one would have ever thought of.
The values
Extra reversed the situation dramatically and received a rocketing increase in their sales. Everywhere on social media, consumers were talking about Extra. Major newspapers like Buzzfeed or DailyMail were all writing articles about the touching gum commercial. Everyone compliments on how the commercial has truly reached them. In 2015, “The Story of Sarah Juan” is voted as the Ad of the Year by YouTube viewers (Extra n.d.).
The brand awareness was significantly increased, and that is exactly what Extra's marketing department wanted - quote:
'Instead of playing to people’s heads with messages about flavor or function, we realized that it was far more important to win over their hearts with powerful storytelling that infused the brand with meaning. In a cluttered category that relies on quick impulse purchases, we needed to tap into consumers’ emotions to have our brand subconsciously remembered, and thus more often chosen, at shelf.'
Until the next thoughts, stay safe.
Hang Nguyen
Reference:
Doyle B 2017, 'How social media made Extra Gum commercial viral', wallaroomedia, blog post, 3 April 2017, viewed 6 July 2021, <https://wallaroomedia.com/blog/theory/how-social-media-made-extra-gum-commercial-viral/>.
Extra n.d., Building powerful brands/Brand revitalisation', Extra Gum, viewed 6 July 2021, <https://www.marketingsociety.com/sites/default/files/thelibrary/Give%20extra_Redacted.pdf>.
Nielsen, “Wrigley Monthly Reporting,” August 2013.
Hello, thanks for sharing such an interesting campaign that has widened my perspectives.
ReplyDeleteIn terms of content, there seems to be no doubt that social media plays an important role in a successful campaign. While the same message is shared on social media, it becomes more viral and spreads to a larger audience than when it is shown on television. As a result, social media platforms are more efficient than traditional marketing techniques in the digital era.
About the content presentation and layout, everything are clear and easy to follow from the beginning to the end. However, if you can modify the sub-titles (A quick recap, The born of the hit, The values) in a way that is different from the main paragraphs, it will be excellent.
Overall, I think your blog is fantastic and helpful!
Glad you had a good read! I actually did modify the sub-titles while designing the layout for the blog, not sure why it did not show. Thank you for the helpful feedback, will definitely take it into account for the next blogs :)
DeleteWow, let me first start off by saying thank you for taking your time researching (and referencing) and sharing this case study to all of us! A bit of shame from my side for not knowing about this campaign earlier, but mostly I'm just in awe of the amazing success it got after slight change of media plan. This case study really shines the lime light on how an exceptional idea might not ever be as successful without a strategic media game plan.
ReplyDeleteTV's ad cost is still (surprisingly) high these days, which forces brands to cut down their TVC and, unfortunately, mitigating its effectiveness. On the contrary, social media lets brand customize their ad's target audience to a tee, which ultimately not only cost-effective, but highly beneficial to building a positive brand's perception as well.
Any input, if I may, is to add more graphics and article screenshots to "lighten up" your next blog post - I personally found articles from Vietcetera (which are always full of images) really helps increasing the attention span of their readers. Can't wait to read more of your blogs, cheers!
Hi Moe (what a cute name!), thank you for your comments. Happy to hear that you had some takeways from my work, hope you enjoyed it!
DeleteTVCs usually last around 15-30 seconds, and that's the time needed for them to catch viewers attention. I don't think cost is the main reason behind the duration of the TV version, simply because that's how long it is supposed to be. It is very rare that we see a TVC lasts longer than 30 seconds, if you notice. But I definitely agree that the high TV ad cost can be another factor affected the brand's tactic, they could have redesigned the structure of the ad or make new changes somehow to make it more interesting for TV viewers. The comment on the benefit of social media also makes a great point!
Thank you for the feedback on the graphics and screenshots, will definitely improve that in my next blogs. I have also written a new one (with more screenshots and pics!), which you can check it out here: https://hangnguyenandmarketing.blogspot.com/2021/07/types-of-influencers-z-guide-to-finding.html
Looking forward to have more meaningful discussions with you in my next blogs, stay safe!
Hi Hang, it is an interesting story and you did really well in emphasizing the power of the share button on social media. In my opinion, the success of the campaign also came from the content. This content promote people to share their own story when TV commercial did not satisfy that. So, social media becomes a perfect channel to put it on. However, in this day, things are changing fast and sharable contents in the past will no longer attractive. What do you think if extra launch a similar campaign in Vietnam - a quite new market in 2021, will it be success again?
ReplyDeleteHi Kim, thank you for spending time having a look at my blog. Glad you enjoyed it!
DeleteYes, I totally agree that the success of the campaign came from the content, which delivered the viewers hedonic values, as stated above. The 30s version simply did not deliver the story as well as the 2-min version, if not to say, at all. At the end of the day, it's all about how relatable they can feel with the brand isn't it :)
Although it might not create as big of an effect like it used to, Extra is still producing story-based ads like this released on social media platforms (e.g the most recent one "For when it's time" in 2021) and is still receiving a huge amount of attention and benefitting the brand really well. That is to say, the heat has not died down at all. Such similar campaign in Vietnam can be challenging, but with the right content and the right tactic, I guess why not :)
Thank you for your feedback and the meaningful discussion :) Meanwhile, you can check my latest blog here: https://hangnguyenandmarketing.blogspot.com/2021/07/types-of-influencers-z-guide-to-finding.html
Looking forward to hearing more from you. Cheers!