When I first saw the Wrigley’s “5” gum packages, I had no idea what to make of them. In fact, I didn’t even know if they were gum or not.
All I knew was that we got a huge shipment of them and we didn’t have nearly enough room on the shelves at the Rite Aid drug store where I worked to put them all. Apparently, this was the biggest event in the history of chewing gum, or at least it seemed that way.
Every one of my co-workers was madly curious to see what the hype was all about. The packaging and design of the gum was so unique and so sleek-looking that it was very tempting to buy a pack. The confusing nature of the names of the flavors caught our eyes, for a little while anyway. We soon figured out that the green one was spearmint, the blue one was peppermint, and the red one was cinnamon.
But the worst part of the gum was that it costed 1.49, a full 30 cents more than every other similar size pack, most of which cost $1.19 each. Considering the fact that, well, I worked at Rite Aid, I’m cheap, and I have college loans to pay off still, I knew I wouldn’t be buying it any time soon.
So I asked every customer that laid eyes on the mysterious new gum if they had tried it. Most said no.
But then, the gum finally went on sale for 99 cents. I knew I had to try a pack.
I ended up getting the peppermint. I eagerly opened the package, checked out the strikingly beautiful colors of the wrappers on the inside, and popped a piece in my mouth.
Two words: bo-ring.
The gum tasted almost exactly like the regular Wrigley’s Winterfresh gum. There really was no discernable difference in taste in my opinion.
Not willing to spend more money on the other flavors, I asked customers what they thought about the gum. Most said the same thing: it’s pretty much nothing special. One person said she noticed a slight extra tingling sensation in the spearmint gum, but is that really enough to justify paying extra for this gum?
Confused, I looked closer at the label and attempted to find out if anything else was special about the gum. Wrigley is also touting the gum’s low calorie count of just 5 per piece, which is probably the reason for the perplexing name. They also brag about how the gum has less calories than regular sugared gums, which is all well and good except for the fact that nobody buys sugared gum anymore and Rite Aid barely even stocks any. Not only that, but every other sugar-free gum I checked on the shelf had the same amount of calories or less.
Put it all together, and it appears as if “5” gum is nothing more than a well-marketed gimmick of a product that costs more than it’s actually worth. If you want an intense gum, you’re probably better off buying some Icebreakers or something like that. Don’t waste your time with “5.”
