11717: Wrigley Chews Off CMO.

Advertising Age reported Wrigley eliminated the Chief Marketing Officer role. So there will no longer be anyone to blame for the God-awful shit that Wrigley passes off as advertising.

Wrigley Eliminates CMO Role

Brian Hansberry Departs After Two Years

By E.J. Schultz

Wm. J. Wrigley Jr. Co is eliminating its North American chief marketing position. The gum giant, which is dealing with category-wide headwinds, confirmed that Brian Hansberry, the company’s CMO since January 2012, is leaving the company as part of the move.

“We made the difficult decision to eliminate the CMO position for our North America business to create efficiencies,” spokeswoman Caroline Sherman said in a statement to Ad Age. “It is not a decision we took lightly, and we value the contributions Brian Hansberry has made to our organization.”

She said that marketing would be overseen by Casey Keller, Wrigley North America president, “along with our category leads.” Mr. Keller joined Wrigley in 2011 after serving as president of the U.S. business of Alberto Culver. Previously, he held senior roles with Motorola, H.J. Heinz and Procter & Gamble.

Mr. Hansberry joined Wrigley after an 11-year stint at H.J. Heinz Co, where his roles included serving as CMO. His departure comes as Mars-owned Wrigley and other gum marketers deal with a multi-year slump caused by a range of factors including more competition from other snacks, such as mints, and less purchasing power from teens.

U.S. gum category sales dropped by 3% from 2012 to 2013, according to Euromonitor International. Wrigley’s U.S. gum share increased slightly from 53% in 2012 to 53.3% last year, according to Euromonitor. The share for competitor Mondelez International, which owns Trident, dropped from 30.9% to 29.4%.

One of Wrigley’s big gum bets, a caffeinated gum called Alert, was pulled from the market last year after a brief stint on store shelves. It was yanked in the face of concerns by the Food and Drug Administration.

The marketer’s lead ad agency for its gum brands is Energy BBDO, Chicago.

In its advertising, Wrigley has sought to breathe some life into the category with a combination of functional and emotional messaging. The marketer’s Extra brand has taken a softer tone with ads that put the gum at the center of emotional moments between a father and daughter. Meanwhile, Orbit, which is Wrigley’s largest gum brand by sales, has run ads plugging the gum as a way to get that “just-brushed clean feeling” after meals.

11392: Extra Corny Gum Commercial.

Sorry, but this Extra Gum commercial blows. Dad looks like a closet child molester. The spot should have ended with Dad discovering thousands of wads of gum stuck to the bottom of the dinner table—before beating his daughter senseless. Oh, and the commercial does a lousy job of communicating anything about Extra. Almost makes one long for the original sappy campaign with the “Extra, Extra, Extra” jingle.

10007: Skittles’ PR Perplexity.

From The Chicago Sun-Times…

Candy conundrum: How should Wrigley handle Skittles’ link to Trayvon Martin killing?

By Candice Choi

It could’ve been Starbursts, Twizzlers or Sour Patch Kids. But when Trayvon Martin was fatally shot, he happened to be carrying a bag of Skittles, a product of Chicago-based Wm. Wrigley Jr. Company.

The 17-year-old’s death at the hands of a neighborhood watchman in February ignited nationwide protests and heated debate about racial profiling and “Stand Your Ground” laws.

For Wrigley, a unit of Mars Inc., the tragedy presents another, more surreal dimension. Protestors carried bags of the chewy fruit-flavored candy while marching for the arrest of shooter George Zimmerman. Mourners pinned the bright red wrappers to their hooded sweatshirts at memorial services.

On eBay, vendors sell $10 T-shirts with the words “Justice for Trayvon Martin” printed over a cartoon-like rainbow of pouring Skittles.

Wrigley issued only a brief statement offering condolences to Martin’s friends and family, adding that it would be inappropriate to comment further “as we would never wish for our actions to be perceived as an attempt of commercial gain.”

The company declined to say whether the Martin case has had an impact on Skittles sales. Even so, it is one of the most popular candies in the U.S.

Sales grew 7 percent over the past year to $213.8 million, according to SymphonyIRI, a Chicago-based market research firm that tracks sales at supermarkets, drug stores and mass merchandise outlets, excluding Wal-Mart.

The best approach for companies is to maintain a low profile, says Katherine Sredl, an assistant professor of marketing at the University of Notre Dame’s Mendoza College of Business. That’s particularly true in the Martin case, where any action by Mars could be interpreted as insincere or opportunistic.

Sredl believes the Martin case could help to reinforce the buoyant image Skittles convey. “Skittles have always symbolized youth and innocence. They’re so brightly colored and almost pure sugar,” Sredl says.

That’s why the candy became such a vivid detail in the Martin case. In the public imagination, it underscored that the teenager was “just a kid walking down the street eating Skittles,” Sredl says.

Skittles isn’t the first popular food brand to find itself at the center of a major controversy. The term “don’t drink the Kool-Aid,” has its origins in the 1978 mass suicide in Jonestown, Guyana, where Reverend Jim Jones led more than 900 members of the Peoples Temple to drink a grape flavored drink laced with cyanide.

The powdered mix used to make the concoction was actually the lesser known Flavor Aid, based in West Chicago. Even so, executives at Kraft Foods Inc., which owns Kool-Aid, decided to let the matter go, rather than set the record straight.

“It would be like spitting into the wind at this point — it’s just part of the national lexicon,” says Bridget MacConnell, a Kraft spokeswoman. “We all try to protect the value of our brands. But this one just kind of got away from us. I don’t think there was any way to fight it.”

MacConnell added that Kool-Aid remains a popular drink and that the Jonestown tragedy has not overshadowed the brand.

AP

6636: Choke And Chew.

Talking trash and assorted garbage in a MultiCultClassics Monologue…

• The Chicago Cubs are partnering with a radio station from Univision to broadcast games in Spanish. The first order of business will involve translating “sucks” and “choke” for listeners.

• Wrigley is taking heat from the Better Business Bureau’s National Advertising Division over claims for its Eclipse gum. The complaints involve messaging hyping the product’s germ-killing abilities that allegedly aren’t backed by scientific evidence. However, you don’t need scientific evidence to see that the spot sucks.