From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Juicy Fruit

Type	Chewing gum
Current owner	Wm. Wrigley Jr. Company
Country of origin	United States
Introduced	1893
Related brands	Wrigley's Spearmint, Doublemint
Website	http://www.juicyfruit.com/

Juicy Fruit is a brand of chewing gum made by the Wm. Wrigley Jr. Company, a U.S. company that since 2008 has been a subsidiary of the privately-held Mars, Incorporated. It was introduced in 1893, and in the 21st century the brand name is recognized by 99 percent of Americans, with total sales in 2002 of 153 million units.^[1]

Description

The average age of the typical Juicy Fruit consumer is under 20, with 3- to 11-year-olds making up the heart of the business; those 20 years old and over account for 40 percent of the purchases.^[1]

Which fruit serves as the model for its flavor is kept vague in advertising, though in 2003 BBDO characterized it as a combination of pineapple and peach.^[1] According to two books in the Imponderables series, banana is one crucial flavor among many others.^[2][3] It is likely that the chemical used for flavoring is isopentenyl acetate, a carboxylic ester.^[4]

Each stick of gum weighs 3 grams (0.11 oz) and contains 10 Calories (42 kJ).^{[citation needed]}

History

A Juicy Fruit Wrapper from 1946, described on the package as a "fascinating artificial flavor".

When the brand first entered the market, it was packaged simply, with a plain wrapper and "JUICY FRUIT" in red, thin block letters; in 1914, Wrigley changed it to thin vertical white and green stripes with "Wrigley's Juicy Fruit Chewing Gum" centered in a stylized Maltese Cross emblem with a black background.^[5] Juicy Fruit was taken off the civilian market temporarily during World War II because of ingredient shortages and the demand for the gum to be included in C-rations. When the gum was re-introduced to the general public after World War II ended, the striped packaging was replaced by one with a bright yellow background and "Juicy Fruit" bracketed between two stylized chevrons, the latter a motif meant to echo the "Wrigley arrow" element used for Wrigley's Spearmint since 1893.^[5] The bright yellow background remained into the 21st century, with variations since 2002 turning the arrowhead-like chevrons into the corners of an elongated smile under the brand name.^[5]Juicy Fruit is still widely popular today.

In 2003 in the United States, Wrigley's replaced some of the sugar in Juicy Fruit with two artificial sweeteners, aspartame and Ace K. In 2009, Wrigley's started selling a sugar-free version of Juicy Fruit.^{[citation needed]}

Television commercial

Since Wrigley's dropped the Doublemint Gum commercial featuring Chris Brown due to legal issues, Wrigley's released a new Juicy Fruit commercial featuring Julianne Hough singing the original Juicy fruit song with the new slim pack.

The gum achieved brief notoriety in the early 2000s when one of their commercials was censored by the FCC. The ad is a parody of a daytime children's show in which an overly cheerful host suddenly attacks her co-star, who is wearing a whale costume, for taking a stick of Juicy Fruit gum from her pocket while the two are singing a song about, ironically, sharing. A fight breaks out backstage and the commercial goes to a test pattern (implying the "network" had censored this unplanned incident), only to return to show the host physically assaulting the whale while the song continues in the background. The ad was criticized for airing during time slots when the sort of child-oriented shows it parodied were playing, and ostensibly legitimizing violence to young children. The ad was not removed from the air, but its play was limited to late-night television however the ad was removed in May, 2004.

References

External links

• Juicy Fruit, the official website for the brand.
• "Juicy Fruit" at the Wrigley's website