Since launching its Life Happens in 5 campaign, 5 gum had relied on largely the same :15 TV spots and an annualized in-store program to generate awareness and interest among young people. But as the smallest brand in the portfolio, 5 couldn’t afford to continue following the same formula. Sales were declining and the brand had done little to generate brand meaning for young people. We needed a digital/mobile-first equity-building activation young people couldn’t ignore and wouldn’t forget when making a decision at shelf.

5 gum uses famous influencers to connect with young people and inspire them to try new things. But every year almost 75% of them don’t feel inspired to take action. To activate them, we turned to a different type of influencer, Martin, a senior citizen, who was chosen not for something he’d done but for something he didn’t do, which left him with a lifelong regret to show young people what happens when you choose not to do something. This unconventional influencer created an open dialogue between two seemingly disconnected generations, and the senior’s regret ignited a movement and inspired a new generation to take action and make choices that ultimately changed their lives.

To build meaning behind our brand, we set our bar higher than driving likes and shares of our content among teens and young adults. Instead, we decided to leverage a different type of influencer that could inspire real action, beyond clicks and comments. We found Martin, a senior citizen, with a real regret powerful and inspiring enough to actually change the behavior of young people and then helped make that behavior change possible.

In short, if we could inspire and enable something meaningful for young people, we would in turn establish meaning behind our brand.

The 85-year-old regret was 5’s first digital-first campaign designed specifically to live in places and spaces where young people would be primed to listen and engage. Data was used to inform everything from the regret theme, content placement for maximum impact, and even activation launch timing. We launched Martin’s story mid-April and shared it with a community of content creators, inspiring them to learn from him and take action. The responses were incredible: a young man who decided to come out to his father, a same sex couple who expressed PDA for the first time, and even a young YouTuber who decided to finally come out to his 30K+ fans.

We edited Martin’s story together with the inspiring reactions we received, and released that to the world with paid media support in mid-May, leading up to LGBTQ Pride Month in June.

All together, we created over 20 unique assets that were custom-built to perform best on Snapchat, Instagram stories, Twitter and Facebook—the places where teens spend most of their time. Working together, PR and social were used to amplify 5’s story of regret and drive earned conversation at every turn.

Surpassing our goal of >10% incremental earned media, we generated an incremental 14% of impressions (76MM) through earned conversation and coverage on top of our paid support plan.

Martin’s story helped us secure 69 placements in digital publications including relevant placements in Huffington Post’s Queer Voices, Out, and Advocate, where 5 Gum would have never previously been featured.

During the month of May, our post highlighting Huffington Post’s coverage of Martin drove 30% of the brand’s conversation alone. The story nearly doubled the amount of monthly brand conversation generated in May, when compared to previous months.

By sharing and elevating a coming out story at a national scale, we were not only able to promote a message of inclusivity for a generation that expects it, but drive meaningful and positive earned conversation around our brand campaign which saw a 9.8% sales lift among those exposed to our work.