Wrigley introduced its 5 gum brand in 2007 trying to set the gum chewing trend among customers. Four years later, in 2011, the company started a big teaser campaign aimed to recruit players to join the alternative-reality game called ‘The Human Preservation Project’. The concept of the game is to explore the virtual world in order to save the human race by maintaining sensory experiences.
The ‘recruitment’ began in May with ads on Facebook, says the WSJ. The buzz among gamers was growing in June, as the ‘secret information’ was distributed to participants at the E3 Expo, a trade show for computer and video games.
Next promo step was a stunt at the Bonnaroo music festival, where thousands of paper helicopters with glowing LED lights representing ‘ice flies’ (a clue in the game) were dropped over the crowd by parachutists. Then, scavenger hunts in 15 cities provided clues to the next phase of the game, which included a new website featuring a short film. According to Wrigley, 600,000 people have participated in the game in one way or another.
What interesting is that the company and 42 Entertainment, the Pasadena, Calif., production firm that developed the Web content, didn’t tie the game to 5 at all. Such step is quite unusual for a consumer-products company as well as it’s also strange to to tease something that has already been on the market for awhile.
Lately, Wrigley has started dropping clues that 5 gum is, in fact, behind the game. There is a link to the game’s website, survivalcode.com, on the 5’s Facebook page, and game codes are included in the gum’s packaging.
«This is the true nature of the brand, which is exploratory,» says Martin Schlatter, Wrigley’s chief marketing officer. «You go down the rabbit hole, and you don’t know how deep it is or where it goes.»
The marketing approach turned out to be smart and Wrigley says that 5 is its most successful brand launch ever and that it has achieved $500 million in sales in five years. Brand experts say that Wrigley’s elaborate game could also pay off.
The company has been positioning its 5 brand with gum flavors named like ‘Cobalt’ or ‘Rain’ as a provider of sensory stimulation, wheter cooling or warm.
«With the whole authenticity trend going on, people don’t like brands not being transparent, but I think 5 gum has done a brilliant job,» says Carol Nakamoto, director of business development for the brand-strategy firm Toniq LLC, which hasn’t been involved in the Wrigley campaign.
The Wrigley 5 promo campaign also included a ‘Vive tu Musica’ music battle earlier this spring.