Don’t get any gum on the keyboard.
Wm. Wrigley Jr. Co. is running its first-ever online sweepstakes as part of an estimated $17 million Gotta Have Sweet campaign for Juicy Fruit gum.
The sweeps sends teens 12 to 17 on a scavenger hunt for brand icons across 15 partner Web sites that include MTV.com, rollingstone.com, and Warner Bros.’ AcmeCity.com and WB.com. Players begin at wrigley.com, follow clues to other sites, then click on hidden icons to win instantly or enter a drawing. Banner ads on participating sites send surfers to Juicy Fruit’s home page.
Grand prize is a trip to New York City to attend a taping of MTV’s Total Request Live (show host Carson Daly appears in Wrigley’s TV spots). There are 10,000 prizes including Sony Discmans, Sega Dreamcast and Sony PlayStation game systems, CDs, and a year’s supply of Juicy Fruit. The seven-week effort runs through Dec. 12 via Wrigley ad agency BBDO, Chicago, and Internet shop Webstakes, New York City.
Wrigley is the first marketer to use Webstakes’s iDialog Kidsafe technology, which makes online promotions comply with new privacy legislation. The Federal Trade Commission begins enforcing the Children’s Online Protection Act on April 21, requiring marketers to get parental consent before kids under 18 participate in online promotions. When kids register for Juicy Fruit’s sweeps, they give their parents’ e-mail address, and parents get a note from Webstakes that says their kid has entered.
Wrigley began repositioning the brand in August ’98. (Total ’98 sales rose 3.5 percent A to $2 billion.) TV, radio, and book covers (for kids 6 to 11) pitch the gum to satisfy sweets cravings. A new TV spot breaks in January. The company spends $125 million on marketing annually.
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