Ice Cubes Gum (History, Marketing & Commercials)

Ice Breakers makes Ice Cubes gum, and they also make the original product that is linked with the company name. Ice Cubes are the soft version of the original breath mint product, and many people prefer this softer and easier-to-chew breath freshener as compared to the hard Ice Breakers Mints.

Ice Cubes Gum occupies a unique place in the history of strange gum products and odd breath freshening options that were tried out by a variety of companies. The 90s were a really strange time when it came to snacking and to gum chewing, and there are so many really zany products that everyone who was around in the 90s can name. From gum with zebra stripes to strangely shaped chips and snacks, there was a lot going on in the snacking and candy games during the 90s.

History

Ice Breakers mints were launched in the 1990s to compete with similar minty breath freshening brands like LifeSavers. When the mints were a big hit, the Ice Breakers brand released Ice Cubes gum to offer a different way to enjoy the same really fresh and delightful flavor while also freshening your breath.

Believe it or not, gum as a breath freshener was not that popular at this time. There were some products that had always created a niche for themselves within the gum market as being breath freshening products, but there was not the vast array of breath freshening gum out there to choose from at this time. This meant that any gum product that claimed to make your breath fresh stood out like a new kind of amazing idea during the 90s.

Ice Breakers gum was a bit hit, just like the Ice Breakers mints. This motivated Ice Breakers to make various flavors of this gum product and to offer up Ice Cubes gum in a variety of different kinds of containers as well. Taglines like, “Break the Ice”, “Experience a flavor breakthrough”, and “KEEP COOL. STAY FRESH” were associated with the brand.

The product was marketed extensively at teens as well and indicated that fresh breath would get you dates, a job, or all kinds of other perks. This was a relatively new idea at the time since most breath-freshening products in the past had been marketed to adults.

The soft and chewy nature of these little cubes of gum, as well as the really good flavor that lasted a long time, made the product really unique and particularly appealing to kids. This is still the case to some degree, but it is more likely that the product is popular with older people and not kids now that there are so many kid-friendly brands out there to choose from.

Hershey bought Ice Breakers in 2000 for a whopping $135 million. This deal also gave them ownership of Bubble Yum, Breath Savers, CareFree, and Stickfree. The Hershey company has been able to grow the brand exponentially, and they have added lots of fun products to the lineup that did not exist at the time of the merger. Hershey had the third-largest share of the chewing-gum market at the time of this acquisition, and these purchases pushed them into a leading position with ease.

The Hershey company quickly pushed Ice Breakers products along with Ice cubes gum to new heights by creating advertising with such well-known names as Jessica Simpson and Hilary and Haylie Duff. MTV also advertised Ice Breakers products constantly, and there were some advertising campaigns that were done with NASCAR and with the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Association. 

In 2018, the company launched a glitter gum that was aimed entirely at millennials and which has enjoyed quite a bit of success. Ice Breakers Frost was discontinued in September of 2022, but some of the stranger items in the product line, like Liquid Ice, are still around. Liquid Ice is a liquid-filled mint that is still popular with those who like that sudden burst of flavor at the center of these unique mints.

Hershey also tried to create an entirely new product called Ice Breakers PACS, which was a powdery mint mixture that was encapsulated by two blue layers that dissolved. There was a lot of controversy over how much this product looked like drugs, and parents were not happy about kids having this item in their backpacks or at home.

Hershey said they never intended for the product to look like street drugs and that they did not believe that there was any resemblance. They did pull the products from the market, however when there was no positive response from consumers to this defense. The product had already been banned in the Kuwaiti market for having pig gelatin in it, so there were numerous reasons to remove it from the market.

Today, Hershey has managed to add further chewing gum products to their holdings, and they have also created fruit-flavored mints and sour candies that are sold within the Ice Breakers lineup. These kinds of products are much more linked with one another these days, and breath freshening is considered the main reason to chew gum. This makes it much easier to create added products meant to make your breath smell great while also staying true to the gum products, which made Ice Breakers so popular.

One of the other major appeals of this product lineup is that it is a sugar-free product which means that you don’t have to worry about ingesting heaps of sugar when you enjoy these products. However, these kinds of products can also cause gastric distress, which can be a factor for those who are sensitive to these kinds of ingredients.

Flavors

• Spearmint Sugar Free
• Peppermint Sugar Free
• Arctic Grape Sugar Free
• Cherry Limeade Sugar Free
• Black Cherry Sugar Free
• Cinnamon Sugar Free
• Ice Cubes Mint Crystals Sugar Free
• Wintergreen Sugar Free
• Ice Cubes Gum 4 Pack Variety Packs
• Tropical Freeze Sugar Free
• Bundle of Assorted Ice Cubes Flavors
• Raspberry Sorbet Sugar Free
• Pina Colada Sugar Free
• Strawberry Lemonade Sugar Free
• Bubble Breeze Sugar Free
• Golden Apple Sugar Free
• Sparkleberry Sugar

Varieties

• Fruit Punch Sugar Free
• Snow Cone Sugar Free
• Strawberry Daiquiri Sugar Free

Logo

Ingredients

From the Amazon entry for the Spearmint gum:

• Xylitol
• Gum Base
• Maltitol Syrup
• Mannitol
• Contains 2% or less of natural flavor, gum acacia, maltodextrin, lecithin
• Artificial color Blue 1 Lake, Yellow 5 Lake, Blue 1, Yellow 5
• Aspartame
• Gelatin or K-Gelatin
• Acesulfame Potassium
• Neotame
• BHT
• Sucralose

These products are all sugar free, and they are also gluten-free. You do need to be aware that some of the products will not be Kosher because they are made with pork-based gelatin. Also, you should be sure that you do not ingest too many of these products, as sugar-free sweeteners can cause digestive upset.

Noted allergens are soy and yellow #5. The company also discloses that the product contains phenylketonurics, which leads to a warning about phenylalanine. The company also states that there are only 5 calories per serving, with each piece of gum being a serving.

Nutrition

Serving Size:	1 piece (2.3g)	% Daily Value*
Amount Per Serving:
Calories	5
Total Fat	0g	0%
Sodium	0mg	0%
Total Carbohydrates	2g	1%
Sugars	0g
Includes Added Sugars	0g	0%
Protein	0g
Iron	0mg	0%

• The % Daily Value (DV) tells you how much a nutrient in a serving of food contributes to a daily diet. 2000 calories a day is used for general nutrition advice.

Pictures

Packaging

Ice Cubes Gum have always been a little different than other gum products. This is due to the soft and fluffy, and also square, shape of each piece of gum. You can get these products in resealable pouches, or you can get this gum product in a small, plastic container with a flip-top. Kids historically really loved the plastic containers with the lids, and they were commonly found in teenagers’ backpacks in the 90s. This is a bit of a cumbersome way of packaging a gum product, but if you have a big enough bag or backpack, you can still make it work. 

The plastic containers are narrower at the bottom than at the top, giving the packaging a very specific and recognizable appearance. The resealable pouches are just basic and even a little bit plain, which is probably why most people think of the plastic containers when they hear the name of this gum. For most people from the 90s, the packaging was just as iconic as the product, which means that the resealable bags are not the preference of most people who love this gum.

Commercials

MTV did a lot of the heavy lifting for this brand when Hershey took over the product. There were even packaging options that included the MTV logo on them. The connection with MTV also made sure that these gum products were placed in some movies during this time period like Kiss Kiss Bang BangI with Robert Downey Jr.

There were also much more traditional ads that were done for TV, and some of these were totally zany and included things like unicorns bursting through walls or the gum products exploding out of the container when someone opened them. The brand would then show the flavor river or flavor explosion in zany ways that were nonetheless memorable.

This is a typical Ice Cubes gum ad:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BmIqkDymPK0

A cool mints ad:

The Duff sisters in their ad with Ice Cubes gum:

A Grape gum ad: