Illustration/Advertising

Dubble Bubble

Timeframe: July - October 2019
Solo Project

Roles:

Illustration
Layout
Designer

Skills:

Procreate
Adobe Photoshop
Adobe InDesign
Creative Thinking
Research

Problem

Dubble Bubble is the original bubble gum, and is a legacy brand. But it has a terrible reputation. It's the last thing in the Halloween bag. With good reason, it is a terrible product, it loses flavor immediately after like, 30 seconds, it starts its life hard, and gets harder after 2 minutes of chewing, and is alarmingly sticky. But it does blow excellent bubbles. So, how can this be marketed to millenials?

Background

Dubble Bubble gum has been manufactured for 92 years–the original bubble gum; Created by Walter Diemer of Fleer Chewing Gum Company (Now owned by Tootsie Roll Industries). Why is it pink? Why pink of all colors? Well, it was the only color available. At the time, it was incredibly popular, and sold well. Now it has a lot of competition to go up against such as: Bazooka Chewing Gum, Bubble Yum, Bubblicious, Fruit Stripe Gum, Big League Chew, Super Bubble., and Juicy Fruit. An incredibly crowded field of arguably better gum (soft and chewable, with longer lasting flavor), modern packaging, and in most cases some sort of social media presence.

Project Goal

Create a short advertising campaign targeted at millennials. The delirable is three 11”x17” posters that would be diplayed outside.

I want to pretend the graffiti guy on the right is actually blowing that bubble.

Process

Research the history, competition, and audience of Dubble Bubble. The basic steps were:

Chew a lot of gum.
Come up with ideas that speak to the audience.
Keep chewing.
Make sketches.
Chew some more.
Build posters.
No more gum.

Unfortunately part of the process is discovering that. Dubble Bubble is a terrible product. At best it is a lowcost epoxy alternative. At worst it is a vomit-inducing filling remover. But it is incredibly cheap, blows pretty good bubbles, and is a welcome distraction to everything terrible happening in the world right now. It is so hard, that if someone told me that it was all manufactured 92 years ago and its all backstock, I might believe them.

Sketches and concepts that did not make the cut. RIP everyone’s Tamagotchis.

A nice “life in the time of Covid-19” update: I have several of these for the first time in nearly a decade! Nice. Update: Paid.

I hope I am not a terrible person for how much I love this drawing.

It’s a bummer, but it saves lives. Fun fact: I live alone, and went over two months without touching another person.

Solution

The concept is “Life Blows. Chew Dubble Bubble.” Placing a bubble over the awful things we have to see in our day to day lives is one of the best reasons to chew Dubble Bubble. Even if it doesn’t provide joy, at least it removes some suck-age. I ended up revising two of the posters later to reflect our new reality of living with a pandemic amongts us, as that added a whole new layer of (necessary) suck to our lives.

Conclusion

The drawing of the person with the broken leg has elicited a lot of emotions from everyone who has seen it. By catching someone’s eye and emotions, it’s working. Is it selling the gum? It will probably do a better job than the campaigns that have existed prior, which have just focused on nostalgia, or aiming at little kids (who aren’t dumb by the way! A child knows their gum!)

JAKE LEVIN