Big Red Gum

Big Red Gum is one of the best cinnamon gums on the market, and it has been really popular almost since it was first sold. Big Red is also made by the same company as Juicy Fruit Gum, and the two products have long been some of the best classic gums that people chew to freshen their breath. Big Red is sold all over the world and is one of the most popular gums that is not sugar-free.

If you love cinnamon gum or cinnamon candy products, this is the right gum for you to try! Big Red Gum and offers a long-lasting flavor which can offer a nice break from wintergreen and spearmint gums of various kinds. Cinnamon-favored products are often harshly hot or are very strong, but Big Red gum strikes a nice balance between spicy flavor and breath-freshening taste.

History

Big Red Gum has been around since 1975. The William Wrigley Jr. Company created the gum and sold it alongside some of their other gum products. By the mid-90s, Big Red was being sold in the UK and Ireland, and it was released in the 80s to Australian markets. Australia has since quit selling the gum, and some other markets like Mexico and Norway can vary with regard to selling or halting imports of the products. When Big Red is sold in Germany, Norway, and Poland, it is white in color instead of red as it is in the US.

Big Red has actually enjoyed numerous kinds of public attention via TV and movies. Will Ferrell mentions the gum in Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, and the product was mentioned in the WandaVision movie as well. WandaVision is set in the 60s, so Big Red would not have been available to the characters of the movie, but the Marvel universe never minds bending the shape of time enough to fit the script.

The Big Red song was one of the contributing factors that made this gum really well-known. Big Red used the “Kiss a Little Longer” jingle that Juicy Fruit used, and the catchy song cemented these products in the memories of consumers all over the US. Most of the early commercials showed couples kissing while the jingle played, and everyone looked very pleased with their gum-chewing experience. 

Big Red and Juicy Fruit were both the result of a strange turnabout in the business plans of the Wrigley family. Early in the life of the Wrigley family business, the company sold baking powder. They always included a small piece of chicle-style gum with each sale to help them stand out from their competitors. It became clear over time that people liked the chewing gum more than the baking powder that the Wrigleys were selling.

By the late 1800s, the company was already changing gears and beginning to sell gum instead of baking powder. Chicle-style gum was already falling out of favor due to issues sourcing it from Mexico, so the Wrigley company was one of the first companies to begin to sell synthetic rubber gums instead of chicle-based gums. The gum was also made in stick form for the first time, which was a lot easier to share and a lot easier to carry around in a pocket or a purse. Individually-wrapped sticks of gum were still a bit of a new concept at this time, but they quickly caught on due to their practicality.

Early in the life of Big Red, the sticks of gum were covered with a red and white wrapper. The foil wrappers that are standard for stick gums that are sold today did not enter the picture until later. The company logo and the overall design of the packaging were not changed much from the first released batch until today, however.

You will find that comparing a very old Big Red gum wrapper with a wrapper from today will show you just how much the product’s advertising model and livery have not been altered. This is actually true of the other Wrigley products as well, and their classically designed logos and packaging stand out from the crowd just because of how simple and straightforward they are compared to other gum products today.

The products were so successful for William Wrigley that he added Double Mint and Juicy Fruit to the original Spearmint product that was selling so well. Big Red was the last addition to the gum stable for the Wrigley family. Family wealth led to the Wrigleys buying the Chicago Cubs in 1921, and this sports team acquisition offered them the chance to market their gum products with ease during sporting events. Wrigley’s gum products were sold at every game, and people connected their love of sports with chewing gum. Even the players were given gum to chew on during the game, helping to cement the impression that chewing gum was something that sports legends and heroes might do.

By now, it was clear that these gum products were going to stand the test of time, and the Wrigley family continued to produce their gum products even during WWII when they were declared the sole suppliers of gum for the military. A Wrigley family member was in charge of the business all the way through 2006, then the company finally changed hands and was sold to the Mars Inc. company.

Today, this classically styled, simple gum is one of the most familiar and well-loved gum products on the market. People adore Big Red gum for standing out from the crowd and offering a taste profile that most gum products cannot boast. Most cinnamon products are too spicy and hot to be enjoyable to chew, but the Wrigley family learned early on that this was not the right flavor profile to create for their cinnamon gum.

For everyone who loves cinnamon candy and doesn’t like minty breath fresheners, there is nothing else that comes even close to competing with Big Red gum. Over time, the Wrigley company made efforts to indicate that gum chewing was not only good for your breath, but it was also good for your mental well-being. Big Red was often at the center of these discussions as it was considered the most enjoyable of the gum lineup for long-duration chewing.

Even if gum doesn’t support mental well-being, it can freshen your breath, and there is something really nice about the occasional change of pace from a mint-flavored gum to a cinnamon-style gum product. There is little that has changed about Big Red Gum since it was first sold, and the Mars Inc company has not made any major changes to the product since it acquired it. After all, if something is just the way it should be already, why make any changes?

Logo

Ingredients

The ingredients for Big Red Gum as listed on HEB:

• Sugar
• Gum Base
• Corn Syrup
• Natural and Artificial Flavors; Less than 2% of: Glycerol, Soy Lecithin, Aspartame-Acesulfame, Hydroxylated Soy Lecithin, Color (Red 40 Lake, Blue 1 Lake), BHT (to Maintain Freshness).

The company notes that the product contains phenylalanine.

Nutrition

Serving Size:	1 stick (3g)	% Daily Value*
Amount Per Serving
Calories	11
Total Fat	0g	0%
Saturated Fat	0g	0%
Polyunsaturated Fat	0g
Monounsaturated Fat	0g
Cholesterol	0mg	0%
Sodium	0mg	0%
Total Carbohydrates	2.9g	1%
Dietary Fiber	0.1g	0%
Sugars	2g
Protein	0g
Vitamin D	0mcg	0%
Calcium	0mg	0%
Iron	0mg	0%
Potassium	0.1mg	0%
Caffeine	0mg

• 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

Ads

The simplicity of the ads that were made to promote Big Red Gum is pretty astonishing, and these commercials were really effective. The slogan, “Long lasting fresh breath,” was also added to the end of all of the ads. This was the sole claim of the company about the gum, and there were no extra frills or fuss about its flavor or any of the other factors that probably made it enjoyable to chew. Gum products were becoming favored by teens who were no longer being discouraged from kissing people they were dating and adults had caught on to the benefits of breath-freshening gum to help attend to smokers’ breath and other problems.

Big Red and the other Wrigley’s gum products had perfectly caught on to the changing times with regard to gum, and the company made the most of the new way that gum was being viewed. One of the best parts of these commercials is that people from all walks of life are included in them. You might see high school kids missing the bus due to kissing their boyfriend or girlfriend, or the couple enjoying their Big Red gum might be camping in the woods. These commercials were much more universally popular than many other ads in the same niche, likely because they spoke to so many people equally.

A classic Big Red gum ad that focused on the way that the gum freshened your breath. People miss their train, ignore their friends, and smile as they sail through life’s problems in this classic commercial, all with the help of Big Red gum.

Another classic Big Red commercial that features people missing their rides, kissing until morning in the front yard, and other antics all due to Big Red’s breath-freshening properties:

A compilation of Big Red ads that everyone who was watching TV in the 80s probably remembers: