Archive for the ‘the business of gum’ Category

First the company, now the building…

Tuesday, September 20th, 2011

File photo, Associated Press, Washington Post

While the Wrigley company itself was sold to Mars just about three years ago,  the 90-year-old landmark building on Michigan Avenue in Chicago has just been sold to BDT Capital Partners of Chicago (Groupon holds a minority stake in the deal), who will seek landmark status for the building. Today’s Washington Post reports that “the chewing gum maker has been committed to securing new ownership for the building that would ensure its future and protect its legacy.”

Stride Gum | Someone Beats The Ram

Friday, March 18th, 2011

The (photographic) history of gum

Tuesday, September 8th, 2009


Chewing gum - thanks to General Antonio de Santa Anna!,
originally uploaded by twm1340.

 To read the words (and history) that goes with this image, click here.

Gum commercial | El Puma

Sunday, September 6th, 2009

Make your world go rounder: The campaign

Friday, September 4th, 2009


IMAGE: Users Experiential

In our post earlier today, we shared a (widescreen!) video featuring part of an innovative chewing gum campaign conducted by Mentos Gum in Canada earlier this year.

Hessie Jones’ Toronto-based blog hessiej.com goes behind the scenes of the campaign, which encouraged consumers to suggest what they’d do to make the world go rounder. As Jones notes in her post, the campaign was designed to focus on life’s simple pleasures:

The premise: Make Your World Go Rounder was meant to be light-hearted and fun, and make Canadians smile by reminding them about life’s simple pleasures. According to Alison Neil of Cossette [the agency that created the campaign], “In the competitive and cluttered gum market we wanted to bring attention to a product feature of Mentos Gum, their roundness (the only round gum on the market), hence “make your world go rounder… we certainly consider this campaign to be non-traditional. We decided to develop an experiential/User Generated Content campaign to engage consumers, develop a dialogue with them and enhance their brand experience.”

The campaign included a website where individuals could post their own suggestions (a screen capture of the website is above), and the winning suggestion included what became a fun park for grown-ups (complete with inflatable slides) in Yonge-Dundas Square in Toronto this past August.

Jones’ post includes a video of the winner of the contest, Danielle Lamarche, and the fun in Toronto that grew out of her idea…

Gum video | Mentos Gum, Canada

Friday, September 4th, 2009

Gum commercial | Italy

Thursday, September 3rd, 2009

Kaugummiautomaten, bleu tür | Germany

Thursday, September 3rd, 2009


Chewing Gum Vending Machine_Hellas, originally uploaded by penjelly.

Gum commercial | Hollywood Sphere, France

Wednesday, September 2nd, 2009

Happy 121st Birthday! The gum vending machine

Wednesday, September 2nd, 2009

 
Lotte Green Gum Machine, originally uploaded by kshibano.

We can thank Greek engineer/mathematician Hero for creating the first vending machines in 215 BC (coins for holy water).

In 1888, the first US vending machines made their appearance on New York City subway platforms, thanks to a familiar force in the history of gum: Thomas Adams.

There’s a great site called gumballs.com which provides an overview of chewing gum itself and, as you might guess, the history of gumball/gum vending machines, including these insights:

Vending machines finally made their United States debut in 1888 when the Thomas Adams Gum Company installed machines on subway platforms in New York City that vended Tutti-Frutti gum. In 1897, the Pulver Manufacturing Company added animated figures to their vending machines, which provided added entertainment for the customer as the figures would move once coins were deposited into the machine.