Review: 5 Gum, ‘Stimulate Your Senses’

5's Extreme Chewing Experience!

Client: Wrigley’s
Title: ‘Stimulate Your Senses’
Agency: AMV BBDO and Energy BBDO

I am an inveterate gum-chewer (never to the levels of “excess consumption” that earn the laxative effect) but sometimes when I slip a packet of Extra out of my pocket I feel emasculated. Where is the hairy-testicled extremity that a man of my levels of testosterone should expect in a breath-freshening nub of sorbitol and humectants? Thankfully gum giant Wrigley’s has developed a real man’s gum, simple-titled: 5.

How do I know this is a steely, masculine gum? First, by a process of elimination. The 26 other gums in the Wrigley canon include the frustratingly gender-neutral Extra, the elitist Extra Professional, the children’s Hubba Bubba range, the Extra in a plastic pill-bottle (clearly aimed at those toting a handbag big enough to take advantage of the value), and Vaporwaves one for those that don’t find Vaporub chewy enough.

But Wrigley doesn’t need men scouring the gum-racks to find their masticatibles. It’s simpler to package them like condoms and antiperspirant. Because nothing says ‘Big Night Out’ like Lynx, Lifestyles and 5 gum. Also, they gave them modern, techy names like Cobalt (peppermint), Electro (spearmint) and Pulse (tropical fruit). And then they run ads like this.

If you visit the 5 gum website you can catch the ads for Pulse (where our hero gets tropical fruit cannoned into him using a giant domed cage as a sieve) and Electro (where our hero lies on a vibrating platform of ball-bearings). And these are just the full-body flavour assaults that have been introduced in Australia.

The ads were made by Chicago and London agencies, and in the US forward-thinking chewers are having their senses assaulted by Zing (an extreme bouncy castle bubblegum experience), Elixir (a women facing a tidal wave of berry), Flare (cinnamon, but doesn’t have an ad), and some “warm and cool winter sensation” called Solstice (a woman diving into an confusingly arctic volcano). Also, Electro is called Rain over there, and Pulse is called Lush.

Ridiculous, no? Despite the feminine flavours in other countries, the Australian 5 experience is distinctly male. One might suggest, brutally male. We don’t want something to chew on; we want something that will TEST OUR PHYSICAL LIMITATIONS AS A MAN! As stylish and slick as these TVCs are, I can’t help thinking that Australian men would prefer the humour of, say, watching someone get kicked in the nuts, rather than putting their own nuts on the line in an extremity contest.

Foil-wrapped sticks still look like a pack of condoms.

Clemenger BBDO Sydney has taken care of the other aspects of the campaign, vainly attempting to create social networking interest with the site encouraging people to submit photos, design and music remixes and deploying Flickr, Twitter and Facebook. Modern. Savvy. Pointless. It’s gum.

I was not blasted by frosty gales in a giant futuristic pinball game (bringing together Schwarzenegger’s Mr Freeze and his Running Man). I chewed the gum. It was okay. The foil-wrapped sticks are a nice retro touch in very high-tech packaging and this seems like the biggest selling point for something that tastes just like regular Extra. No ripped metrosexual models being accosted by mind-blowing contraptions. Just a cool new pack.

Gum is gum is gum. It wasn’t the innocuous packaging of Peppermint Extra that’s making my balls shrink. It’s the fact that these ads are shaming me into thinking I need to assert my gender through my freakin’ choice of chewing gum now.

Related stories:

1. Review: Big M Edge ‘Bloke Power’ It pokes fun at the perfection of Brand Power MILFs...