Stride is known as The Ridiculously Long-Lasting Gum. With almost a negligible budget, we were challenged to reach our core audience of 18-24 year olds in the online space.

We soon learned that our target audience also has a negligible budget in their daily lives, so they’re always looking to buy pre-owned stuff on online classifieds. Pre-owned cars, sofas, jeans, computers…so why not ‘pre-owned’ gum? We created a series of online classified ads for Stride ‘Pre-Owned’ Gum. Mimicking the look, feel and language of used car ads, these classifieds drove home the message that since the flavor of Stride gum lasts too long, you can chew it for a long time and then ‘re-sell’ it because there’s still something more left in your chewed piece of gum! A preposterous notion, but something that cut through the usual clutter of everyday classifieds. Our target on online classifieds sites (like craigslist.org) started responding in many ways. Some were entertained and told us so. Others wanted to buy the gum. They wanted to come over and pick it up and some wanted a little bargain, albeit tongue in cheek. And then there were others who forwarded the link to their other friends and colleagues, creating a lot of chatter and buzz.

It is estimated that each person who interacted with these online classifieds spent around 2.5 minutes with the brand. That’s priceless, specially considering that posting the ads cost us nothing.

Brand recall, badge value and consumer loyalty numbers are all up. Sales for Stride ‘pre-owned’ gum have obviously skyrocketed by 2000%!