2011 Winners & Shortlists

The Brief

By early 2010 the UAE chewing gum market had reached levels of saturation (97% penetration) but daily usage was still relatively low at just 40%. Therefore, the only way to grow Wrigley Extra’s business would be to get people chewing more often. In response, Wrigley developed ‘Extra Aqua’ – an innovative new gum, filled with refreshing liquid. With an A-T-L launch campaign already in place, the challenge was to look for additional ways of bringing the brand to life over-and-above traditional advertising.

Describe how the promotion developed from concept to implementation

We found that affinity towards the animated characters featured in the A-T-L campaign was incredibly high (despite being baddies). In fact, people were even posting homemade video tributes on Youtube! Therefore, our strategy was to develop branded content around the Extra Aqua characters. We gave the four characters personalities and constructed a fictitious plot around them arriving in Dubai, before revealing them as fugitives on the run from the good guy, ‘Agent Aqua’. The story was told over two months through a spoof news program called ‘Channel News Extra’, hosted on a Facebook fanpage via a series of videos.

Describe the success of the promotion with both client and consumer including some quantifiable results

As with the majority of chewing gums brands, Extra have historically focused on communicating the functional benefits of the product. By creating a story-line based on the A-T-L characters we moved the brand towards more emotional communication – triggering stronger connections with the young target audience. Through branded content we successfully managed to bring out the fun and playful nature of new Extra Aqua, whilst maintaining its oral care message.

Explain why the method of promotion was most relevant to the product or service

Nearly 14,000 fans followed The Aqua Chase contributing to 6,000+ brand interactions such as posts, likes and comments. Fans even created a viral-effect for us with 8,000 people viewing the videos outside of Facebook. The Aqua Chase also became a popular blogging topic on Twitter. Finally, top-of-mind awareness of Extra increased from 59% to 70%.