Brand
Extra gum
Creator
Energy BBDO (agency)
Title
The story of Sarah and Juan
TCMR Score (out of 100): 95 (superior)
Scale: 0-50 (unsuccessful); 51-70 (moderately
successful); 71-90 (quite successful); 91-100 (superior).
Description
A video that tells the story of a young couple’s life
together and how a man uses gum wrappers, of all things, to propose to his
girlfriend in a well thought out, romantic way.
Why it works
It’s a great, emotional story told in a compelling way.
Why it works as
content marketing
While well crafted, it does take quite a bit more than 30
seconds to tell this story, so it wouldn’t work well (or be cost-effective) in
the typical TV spot format. Also, it’s important to note that the message says
nothing about the product at all, choosing to integrate it as part of the
story; striking a beautiful balance that’s more than simple product placement,
but much less than an endorsement.
What can we learn?
I would love to say we can point to a sales increase (or
lack thereof) as a result of this content marketing tactic. But, while I
looked, it turns out that Mars Corp. (owners of Wrigley and the Extra brand) is very private about
financial matters.
What we can learn is that people love a romantic story and will give a brand credit for creating one. They will also share a great story prolifically with their personal networks (as of December 2015 – not yet three months old – the video on YouTube had been viewed nearly 17 million times and shared 59,000 times). But why?
What we can learn is that people love a romantic story and will give a brand credit for creating one. They will also share a great story prolifically with their personal networks (as of December 2015 – not yet three months old – the video on YouTube had been viewed nearly 17 million times and shared 59,000 times). But why?
Like its predecessor video, called Origami, Sarah and Juan pulls the viewer in with
an intriguing story, while keeping the product mentions infrequent enough to
avoid it feeling like an ad.
Because — are you ready for this – it’s not an ad.
Ads, in the purest sense, promote products or services. They
talk about features and benefits and they tell people where they can go to buy
the product or service. This video does none of that.
I’m sure there are those who will disagree with me on this
point, perhaps even some of the people working to promote the brand itself. To
me, an ad is more than just getting attention. It’s that, for sure. But then it
moves (or tries to move) the audience toward a purchase. This video never
attempts that…and, perhaps above all else, that’s what makes it more content
marketing than advertising.
The seamless connection to the brand itself, given to the
audience as a head-nodding moment that’s woven indelibly into the story, can
easily be simultaneously appreciated and forgiven by the viewer all at the same
time.
Here’s the bottom line: the Extra team understands their station in life. They are promoting a
brand of chewing gum, not something complex like a car or a life insurance
policy.
Theirs is an impulse purchase and the hope here is simply that, the next time the viewer is in a store or at the gas station near a chewing gum display, perhaps they will give Extra a try. That’s it.
Theirs is an impulse purchase and the hope here is simply that, the next time the viewer is in a store or at the gas station near a chewing gum display, perhaps they will give Extra a try. That’s it.
And that is the very essence of content marketing.
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