By: Ethan Smith and Julie Jargon (photog: Kambouris/WireImage)
Sharp-eared pop-music fans may have noticed a brief reference to an old chewing-gum jingle buried in “Forever,” Chris Brown’s top-10 hit. “Double your pleasure/double your fun,” the R&B singer croons in the chorus.
What listeners don’t know — and what Wm. Wrigley Jr. Co. planned to reveal Tuesday — is that the song is a commercial.
“Forever” is an extended version of a new Doublemint jingle written by Mr. Brown and scheduled to begin airing next month in 30-second spots for Wrigley’s green-packaged chewing gum.
Mr. Brown is one of a trio of pop stars enlisted by ad agency Translation Advertising, a unit of Interpublic Group of Cos., to update the images of three of Wrigley’s best-known brands.
The campaign includes spots featuring R&B singer Ne-Yo doing his own take on Big Red’s “kiss a little longer” jingle. And “Dancing With the Stars” regular-turned-country-singer Julianne Hough recorded a twangy version of Juicy Fruit’s “The taste is gonna move ya.”
But Mr. Brown’s “Forever” is the most ambitious part of the campaign. Mr. Brown was commissioned to write and sing both the pop song and a new version of the Doublemint jingle, introduced in 1960.
First, Mr. Brown updated the jingle and recorded it with hip-hop producer Polow Da Don. Then, during the same Los Angeles recording sessions in February, paid for by Wrigley, Mr. Brown added new lyrics and made a 4½-minute rendition of the tune, titled “Forever.”
In April, Mr. Brown’s record label, Jive, released the song to radio stations and digital download services as a single. After the song became a hit, Jive added it to his 2007 album, “Exclusive,” and re-released the album in June. “Forever” reached No. 4 on Billboard magazine’s Hot 100 chart last week.
All three new Wrigley jingles are scheduled to be unveiled at a news conference Tuesday in New York, with each of them to be performed by the artist involved. Mr. Brown is slated to sing “Forever” and segue into his jingle. New television commercials and radio spots featuring the jingles and print ads showing new packaging for the gum are set to appear in August.
This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 29th, 2008 at 12:11 pm and is filed under Gossip Girlz. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Hip Hop is still the hottest marketing ticket.. get the money!
So im hoping that the jingle isnt “double your pleasure, double your fun & chew forever… and ever… and ever…”
Yeah Jay-Z is getting that money off of this shit!!!! I need to get hired over there at Translation ASAP!!!!
The way Neo and Jay-Z chew on gum they should be doin Bubbliciuos ads lol, cause they don’t be playin!!!!
Shaz
Nahhh I was referring to this Joey… I blogged this back in the day:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/08/business/media/08adco.html?_r=1&ref=media&oref=slogin
But sooooo true… LeBron and Michael Jordan too!
Gotcha, oh yes BRUTHA IS PAID!!!!
Definitely getting paper from all angles. BUTTT… Jay isn’t hand-on… so the article said. Thats what floors me. IDK… maybe he does put in a grind. I’m guessing he’s a silent partner.
You know he probably is a silent partner no one new about he Basketball team till late in the game as well or at least they made it out to be that way.
Shaz
Jay stays “silent”.. he said that about 40/40 when all the lawsuits started coming in..