I couldn’t believe it either. The Wall Street Journal article Chew on This blew me away. Creative advertising at its finest, for a 117-year-old company and for a 94-year-old product.

In the music world, hip-hop artist Chris Brown’s latest pop single, Forever, has been on the Billboard Top 100 for a couple of months, and this week it hit number 4. It has been playing all over the radio. , at parties, in clubs, everywhere; whether you’re tuned in to current music or not, chances are you’ve heard this song. Anyone who has heard it can tell you that in the chorus there is a reference to an old bubble gum catchphrase, “double your pleasure, double your fun”: DoubleMint Gum by Wrigley. We all thought it was just a cute, nonsensical reference in pop song, and boy were we wrong. Turns out it’s a direct reference to Wrigley’s product. Better yet, Wrigley paid for everything! In February, they brought Chris Brown in to simply record an updated jingle for the DoubleMint Gum commercials, which was announced to air next month. During the same recording session, they recorded a 4 1/2 minute version of the jingle, Chris Brown called it “Forever”, and in April they released it to radio, where it became a huge hit.

Now that he’s in the top 5 on the Billboard charts, Wrigley is coming out behind the curtain (apparently they’ll reveal it on Tuesday) to say that the whole song is a commercial … essentially. In fact, I really like the song, and now every time I listen to it, I’m going to think of DoubleMint Gum. Talk about breaking out of the ad clutter! And it doesn’t stop there. The campaign will also feature the same type of song commercials by two other pop artists, Ne-Yo and Julianne Hough, for Big Red and Juicy Fruit, respectively.

The advertising agency Interpublic Group is responsible for the new idea. And it is not the only one. Also announced today was a new campaign for Dr. Pepper, another company founded over a hundred years ago, where well-known but fictitious doctors are “prescribing” how to drink the classic soda. A recent, and real, study was done that showed that people who drank soda more slowly actually enjoyed the taste more. Whether it’s true or not, we’ll have to take her word for it, but it’s made for a great (and creative!) Ad campaign for another seemingly stagnant product type. Check out the commercial here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=enJbXlb4zqo/

It just goes to show that no matter what you sell – even something as simple as gum and soda – there are amazing, ready-to-go ideas simmering on the sidelines waiting to help your brand. What do you think of these ads? Let me know!