We turned the smallest, most disposable part of our product – the wrapper – into a new medium that allowed the brand to connect with consumers, and people to connect with each other.

It started online, with a love story that gave new meaning to our wrappers. Our film, "The Story of Sarah and Juan," showed that even the most meaningful connections in life can come from something as small as sharing a piece of gum.

Then we actively engaged consumers through a combination of live artists, social media platforms, and technology, devising a way to turn the moments people were sharing online into beautiful hand-drawn wrapper art, in real time. All consumers had to do was tag a photo with our hashtag: #GiveExtraGetExtra. The unique pieces of art were displayed in an interactive gallery at GiveExtraGetExtra.com and consumers proudly shared them across their social networks — getting our wrapper in front of millions of people in a truly meaningful way.

The campaign generated more than 1.3 billion impressions.

"The Story of Sarah and Juan" received more than 110 million views, 40 million of which came in the first 48 hours. It was shared 1.4 million times, became a trending topic, made headlines around the world, got spoofed a few times, and was named one of the top 5 iconic ads of the year by YouTube.

Over a thousand unique pieces of wrapper art were created and shared back with consumers.

After the campaign launched Extra was the top-selling gum brand for 25 weeks in a row.

Rather than follow category convention, playing to people’s heads with functional product messaging, we sought out to win over people’s hearts with powerful storytelling that would infuse the brand with new meaning.

Simply put, we wanted people to fall in love with Extra gum.

Extra gum had become one of the biggest brands in the category, dominating store checkout lanes with a myriad of flavors. But despite its size, the brand lacked a clear meaning and sales were declining.