An Analysis of Extra Gum's Marketing and Market Performance

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of Wrigley's Extra gum, focusing on its product launch and marketing strategies in the USA. It begins with an executive summary outlining the study's objectives, which include identifying consumer trends, assessing market performance, and evaluating the overall success of the product. The report then delves into the history of Wrigley, the objectives of the study, and a detailed discussion of consumer trends, including the appeal of sugar-free gums, the variety of product offerings, and the ingredients used. The assessment section evaluates the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) associated with Extra gum, supported by models like the Ansoff matrix to illustrate market penetration, product development, and diversification strategies. Finally, the report concludes with a summary of the findings and a discussion of the product's positioning within the consumer market, providing a thorough overview of Extra gum's marketing journey and its impact on consumer behavior.

Running Head: PRODUCT MANAGEMENT
PRODUCT MANAGEMENT
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The paper aims to discuss the journey of Wrigley from the beginning with the variation of its
products. The company is dwelling with more than 180 countries covering entire world. They
have the operational head in more than fifty countries all over the entire world. For this
particular study, the objectives are to identify different consumer trends. Consumer trends
refer to the reason behind the popularity of the company over the consumer world. It can be
the size, the domain, the nature, the flavor and the corporate image of the business.
Throughout the paper the reason behind the popularity of the brand Extra and its flavored
gums are described. The reasons are supported with proper pictorial presentation to make the
study a significant one for the further research work. On the other hand, there are certain
matrix and analysis model that develops a clear understanding about the company profile.
The study includes a section that mentioned all the used ingredients utilized in the production
of the gums. The various flavors of the gums are also provided within the study. The analysis
mentioned in this study helps to understand the strengths, weaknesses, threats and
opportunities of the organisation. However, the study excluded the strategic management of
the organisation. It has covered every aspect of the product development requirement. Hence,
the study purposefully drawn an insightful discussion about the product Extra gums. The
second part of the study also mentioned a clear connection with the first part. Third part of
the study mentioned about various diagrams for deep analysis of the company and the brand
as well. Finally, the paper mentioned about a brief summary of the entire discussion to
provide a recap about its knowledge and development.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION......................................................................................................................3
OBJECTIVES........................................................................................................................3
DISCUSSION............................................................................................................................3
CONSUMER TRENDS.........................................................................................................4
THE ASSESSMENT.............................................................................................................8
CONCLUSION........................................................................................................................11
References................................................................................................................................13

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INTRODUCTION
The Wrigley is an American chewing gum company started their journey from 1891,
April. The company dwells with more than 180 countries as well as districts all over the
globe and maintains the operational performance from more than 50 companies. They started
their journey by merely packaging the chewing gum with baking powder. William Wrigley
Jr. was 29 years old when he started the journey from Chicago and initiated the job of selling
Wrigley souring soap (Wrigley and Winternitz 2017). In the recent time, the company comes
up different brands namely, M&M, Snickers and Mars Bar. The other confectionary brands
are 3 Musketeers, Skittles, Twix, Dove and Milky Way.
OBJECTIVES
For this study, the product gum of Extra is selected to identify the related marketing
trends associated with it. The product launch in USA and the related customer trends will be
discussed in this following section. The objectives of this study are –
 To understand different customer trends associated with this product.
 To Assess the market performance of this product.
 To reflect on the overall success of the product launch.
DISCUSSION
The latest product of Extra is the spearmint sugar-free gum. Every packaging of the
gums contains fifteen sticks. The brand Extra recognize the customer trend and requirements
and provide extra in return to their consumers and their tagline says “Give Extra. Get Extra”.
The Wrigley company launched Extra in the USA market in the year 1984 (Welch 2017). It is
the first ever sugar free gum product launched in USA it was the main reason for the
popularity of the gum product. On the other hand, the innovative way of attaching health

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consciousness with the sweet product of chewing gum is responsible for huge recognition of
the product as well as the brand.
CONSUMER TRENDS
Segment construction in the dominate market
Extra gum used unique ingredients to attract the consumers. It includes the gummy
materials such as chicle, sweetening elements and flavors. Extra has segregated the market
with adults and young adults by infusing lots of innovations within their products (Wrigley
2017). The attracting size, shape, various flavors created lot more interest among the young
consumers. It crossed the consumption of candy in the US market and increased the
consumption of the gums for the targeted consumers in the US market.
Figure 1: The market share of Wrigley
Source : (Muema and Deya 2019)
Sugar free gums
The consumer market is growing health conscious in the recent period of time. The
increased rate of obesity, high blood pressure, and high blood sugar created an alarming

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situation for the consumers of candy and gum. Most of the consumers are avoiding the fast
foods and foods with lots of sugar ingredients. Hence, Extra is a brand that produces gums
with sugar free ingredients. It is tested and tried by the experts about the ingredients and it
does not compromise it with its tastes (Wrigley and Straker 2017). The consumer market is
more likely to consume the less sugary or sugar free products to lead a healthy life without
compromising the urge for sugar craving.
Figure 1: (Sugar free gum market development)
Source: (Grant and Wrigley 2017)
Variety of products
Extra comes with various ranges of products that also attracts the consumers to buy
gums from this brand. The flavors include spearmint, peppermint, smooth mint, Classic
bubble, berry burst and many others. Hence, consumers have lots of option to buy from the
brand and it is attracting every demographic consumer to buy the products with variety of
flavors (Price and Wrigley 2016). On the other hand, any other common brand of gums does
not provide these rates of variety in their products. All the products of Extra are equally

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popular in the consumer market of USA. As mentioned all the flavors provide refreshment to
the consumers as the main ingredient is mint.
Figure 3: Use of Extra gums by the consumer
Source: (Nusem, Wrigley and Matthews 2017)
Ingredients of Extra gum
As a unique strategy, the ingredients of Extra are worth to be mentioned in this
regard. The ingredients include – Sorbitol, Gum base, Glycerol, Flavors natural and also
artificial. Along with this, the other ingredients are – Hydrogenated Starch Hydrolysate (not
more than 2%), Acesulfame K, Aspartame, Mannitol, BHT, and additional food color. All the
ingredients contain different value for the product and make the gum interestingly attractive
for the consumers (Nusem, Wrigley and Matthews 2017).

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Sorbitol – it is used as a non-stimulant laxative. It is the reason of the bowel movements by
extracting water into the huge intestines. It is also used in the cough syrup, diet foods, diet
drinks, and also in ice cream (Loutskina and Shapovalov 2017).
Gum base – it is the only non-nutritive ingredient in this product. It is non-digestible,
insoluble in water that gives the product a chewy texture. Basically, it is the product that
combines all the nutritional products in a gum (Clough et al. 2017).
Natural and artificial flavors – flavors the best part of the product. The huge variety
including mint, watermelon, berry, and others allow the consumers to provide alteration to
their taste buds (Muema and Deya 2019). On the other hand, these are the ingredients that
make Extra a unique brand and attract the targeted consumers.
Starch Hydrolysate – it is used as common sugar or used as substitute of sugar. The product
use Starch Hydrolysate for the sugar free base of the gums. This makes the product sugar free
without compromising the taste of sweetness (Lee, Merkley and Bailey 2017).
Acesulfame K – it is the ingredient that is remain stable in high temperature and is soluble in
water. It is used for enhancing the sweetness in gums and candies, diet drinks, gelatins, and
also used as tabletop sweetener or sweet dishes for many families (Loutskina and Shapovalov
2017). The ingredient also used in the products of Extra to bring out the sweetness of the
gums.
Mannitol – It is also a type of sugar alcohol that is used for sweetening the medicines
basically used by the health practitioners. It also used by the restaurants for maintaining the
health of the diabetic patients. Hence, the product is used within the gum to make it sugar
free yet sweet to the consumers of the United States.
BHT – the abbreviation of BHT stands for – butlylated hydroxytoluene. It is used for
preserving the food that is used in candies, medicines, and gums also. Hence, the use of BHT

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in gums is used for preserving it for a stipulated period of time (Feenstra and Antoniades
2017).
Food color - The final ingredient of gum is edible food color. The color additives have many
purposes to be used in food items. In this Extra gum product, the color is used to provide
attractive colors to the chewing gums. It is the main reason for attracting the young adults of
the United States to consume the products.
CONSUMER TRENDS INGREDIENT AND
PROPERTIES
HOW IT FULFILS THE
TREND
Segment of the consumers Food colors and Making the candies
attractive and increasing the
interest among the young
adults of the consumer
market.
Sugar free gums Starch Hydrolysate This is the sugar substitute
of the product that is not
harmful as sugar and makes
the gums as sugar free
without compromising the
taste.
Variety of products Natural and artificial
products
The flavors made different
kind of gums according to
the choice or preference of

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the consumers.
THE ASSESSMENT
From the extracted data about Extra in the US market, some strengths, weaknesses,
opportunities and threats can be observed for the brand as well as the company. In this
following section, the study will discuss the mentioned aspects after launching the gums by
Extra in the US market.
Strengths – It belongs to the pioneering chewing industry that is Wrigley. The packaging is
attractive to the consumers. On the other hand, the products are healthy and maintain quality
for the consumers (Gurtner, Spanjol and Griffin 2018). It has a good management of supply
and distribution. The strong parenthood of the brand is the main strength of the organisation.
Weakness – The brand has intense competition with the rival groups includes – Mondelez,
Hershey’s and Lotte. For the mint product the relate rival is Perfetti prevalent in the US
market. Along with this the alteration of the costs is also a weakness for the brand and it is
affecting the brand loyalty also.
Opportunities – There are various opportunities for the product also. It includes non-
traditional marketing of the products. It also can try organic or ayurvedic products including
different types of herbs for producing the gums (Bullus 2017). On the other hand, the brand
must enhance their marketing campaigns to promote about the brand and generate more
revenue for the company.
Threats – There are various local products emerging as the threat for the company. On the
other hand, the local brands also offer complementary offer for generating more consumers
for the company.

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Ansoff matrix
Figure 4: Ansoff matrix
Source: (Price and Wrigley 2016)
The matrix helps to understand the mathematical representation of the product with
the proper market penetration, product development, market development and diversification
(Lee, Merkley and Bailey 2017). The elements of the matrix are mentioned in the following
section –
Market penetration – Focusing on selling the candy, gum, coffee and other beverages in the
existing market.
Product development – Extra gum is an innovative and new product that launched within
the existing market.
Market development – adopts the diversification strategy with various flavors to enter into
the market place.

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Diversification – The sugar free gum products is the new means of diversifying the products
and attract more consumers for the company.
POSITIONING
Positioning begins with the product and its position in the consumer markets in terms
of cost and quality. This approach is needed to understand the consumer impression about the
company or brand. Considering the positioning map of Extra and Wrigley the brand is lying
between the access of high price, and high quality. They are providing quality products and
maintaining the price for providing benefit to the company also.
Combining all the studies about Wrigley and its journey towards innovating new
products for the consumers, it can be said that the company has tasted a great success
comparing to the rival groups covering the entire world (Muema and Deya 2019). The
company had started their journey by merely providing the packaging services for gums and
baking soda. From there, their unique marketing strategy led them towards success at a
greater speed. They involved the innovation and technology for improving their business for
the appropriate and proper consumers for the company (Nambisan et al. 2017). On the other
hand, the consumers are also showing greater loyalty for the brand or organisation. Extra is a
gum production company in the USA market (Phillips et al. 2016). The variant ingredients
and flavors helped them to increase their business at a greater extent.
CONCLUSION
As a conclusion, it can be said that, innovation is a greater part of any kind of
business and it highly associated with its growth. On the other hand, Wrigley is situated as a
successful brand from the very beginning of the gum and candy industry. The attachment of
the Wrigley company with the brand is itself a strength for the company. Their promotional
campaign on various social media platforms helped them to reach their business as one of the