Doublemint: Betting on the front foot

After two years, brand Doublemint has a new strategy in place. BBDO came in as the creative agency this year, and has created the first commercial based on the strategy. afaqs! takes a chew of the new

Wrigley's Doublemint's new strategy has the brand talking about social responsibility, albeit with a touch of humour. afaqs! explores the brand's journey down this new path.

Chewing the creative cud

Idea has taken the route, and so has Tata Tea. The social awakening arena is definitely not uncharted territory. However, Doublemint has attempted to give the communication a humorous twist.

The film for Doublemint opens on a set of friends seated in a car, waiting in a traffic queue at a signal. As the traffic begins to move gradually, a guy in a jeep breaks from the queue, and gets ahead in the next lane. Popping in two pellets of Doublemint, the youngsters get onto the road and with a melodramatic situation, get the guy to realize his mistake and take his previous place in the queue.

'Front foot pe chabao,' says the brand's new tagline.

Josy Paul, chairperson and chief creative officer, BBDO India believes that chewing gum is about attitude. "You might have seen Viv Richard chew casually as he stepped out and hit the ball out of the stadium. More recently, we've seen the same attitude in Yuvraj and Sehwag. It's called 'front foot'. And it's what the youth of India have in good measure - the willingness to maximise the moment with total confidence."

He adds, "Wrigley's Doublemint identifies with this growing sentiment and segment. The brand gives the youth direction and the license to maximise the moment, with a certain lighthearted aggression."

The team at BBDO India includes Sandipan Bhattacharyya and Arjuna Gaur. The film has been directed by Rajesh Krishnan and produced by Soda Films.

The brand's positioning has changed significantly, as compared to the previous tagline, 'Fresh rahoge, pyaar milega'. Considering that the brand is positioned as a breath freshener, the earlier tagline was more product-attribute driven.

Most breath-freshening brands have followed similar positioning. Therefore, Doublemint realized that 'breath-freshening' could not be the brand's exclusive proposition. Before 'Fresh rahoge, pyaar milega', which was coined in early 2007, the brand was fairly passive in terms of advertising.

Doublemint is targeted at the youth, male and female, between 18-21 years of age, in SEC A, B and C, mostly college goers. The secondary target groups are 15-18 years and 21-24 years.

As per a research conducted by Wrigley's, the youth space was the only untapped segment, considering that its other brands - Orbit and Boomer - are targeted at young adults and children, respectively.

The opinion takes front foot

Anandaroop Ghosh, creative head, Rediff Kolkata understands that, perhaps, the strategy is to say that fresh breath gives one the confidence to be bolder and more in your face, which, he supposes, could work in this category. "However, I came up with it only after racking my brain for a while - something that we cannot reasonably expect the consumer to do."

The story seems very contrived to Ghosh. "If we look at the 'Dimag ki batti jala de' campaign for Mentos, which is also about freshness; there is that refreshing quality in the story, as well as the execution. And the films flow beautifully, without appearing to be forced. The execution aids the idea. Here, the proposition, which is fairly simple, gets lost behind all the 'performance'."

Ankur Khurana, brand partner, planning, Orchard Advertising, is not convinced about the reach-out-to-the-rebellious-youth strategy. "A mix of Tata Tea and Chlormint seems overdone. This is a low-involvement category - why try and make people think so much? There is a mismatch at the profile of people and the music level."

"Have we heard this music somewhere? 'Front foot pe chabao' sounds like strategy being translated to creative," he exclaims.

As far as the creative strategy goes, Ghosh is of the view that the idea of someone being a public nuisance and getting his comeuppance is not new - MTV did it spectacularly with the One Tight Slap spots, and several other brands have used it too, and in a better manner.

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