Bubble Tape – Hubba Bubba

Bubble Tape is one of the most memorable gum products that has ever been sold. There is no other gum maker that sells an entire roll of gum with its products or who has thought to house gum in a tape dispenser-style container. This gum became really popular in the 90s when it was marketed exclusively towards kids, but it has enjoyed success with all age groups as familiarity with the brand has grown.

The marketing style and agenda of this gum has not changed much since the 90s, and people who grew up enjoying Bubble Tape will appreciate how true the product still is to its roots. Since the styling of this particular product has remained so consistent, everyone can still enjoy the zany and wacky wonderfulness of Bubble Tape in the way it was meant to be consumed.

History

Hubba Bubba bubble gum is produced by the Wrigley Jr. Company. This offshoot of the gum brand began it’s like in 1988. It enjoyed peak popularity in the 90s due to the zany ads that the company ran and the really unique and exciting way that the gum was packaged. This packaging style has continued to be used for all of the various flavors of this gum, even today. No other gum is sold in tape form with a dispenser that is meant to cut it off like pieces of tape.

If you have never enjoyed Bubble Tape, you should be prepared for a treat. Each variety of this gum brand is sold in a plastic dispenser that is intended to look like a roll of regular tape. The gum can be cut off just like tape can be cut off of the role. The plastic container is about the size of a hockey puck, and it is really ideal for keeping so much gum fresh and for making it easy to dispense.

The regular gum rolls offer access to six feet or 1.8 meters of gum. All of this can be enjoyed with the tape dispenser-style means of access, or the container can be split in half, and you can take out the whole roll of tape. The inside of the dispenser contains the gum in a spiral that can be pulled on to be dispensed with ease.

While this is not the most flavorful gum on the market, and the texture is a bit strange due to the necessity for the gum to handle being pulled on to dispense it, it’s still really enjoyable gum. Kids, in particular, love the concept of this gum and enjoy being able to share their gum stash in a creative way with friends.

All of the various flavors of the gum are made with the original Hubba Bubba gum as the base recipe. There are few seasonal offerings within the product line. You will almost always see the classic bubble gum flavor offered in stores by itself. If you want to try the other varieties, you will probably need to order the gum online and have it shipped to you.

There are many online sellers that offer this gum product for sale, but Amazon might be your best bet. The supply for this product has seemed to decrease greatly in recent years, and there has been a rebranding that changed the name of the product to Hubba Bubba Bubble Tape. Knowing what to look for can help you to track down the more unique flavors of this product to enjoy.

Sadly for Bubble Tape, with the rise of breath-freshening gums and the interest in consumers in avoiding sugary substances like sodas and candy, popularity has fallen off a little in recent years. Specialty candy stores have largely taken over the marketing of this cool gum product, so fans will need to look for this chewing gum in candy stores rather than the grocery store.

Ingredients

• Sugar
• Gum Base
• Corn Syrup
• Glycerol
• Less than 2% of: Natural and Artificial Flavors, Soy Lecithin, Acesulfame K, Aspartame, BHT (to Maintain Freshness), Colors (Red 40, Red 40 Lake)

Nutrition

Serving Size:	3g	% Daily Value *
Amount Per Serving
Calories	10
Total Fat	0g	0%
Total Carbohydrate	2g	1%
Sugar	2g
Protein	0g	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.

Varieties

• Awesome Original
• Sour Green Apple
• Sour Watermelon 
• Sour Blue Raspberry
• Cotton Candy
• Strapping Strawberry 
• Juicy Fruit
• Gushing Grape
• Snappy Strawberry
• Triple Treat (also titled ‘Triple Mix’) – A mix of strawberry, blueberry, and watermelon
• Sugar-Free Very Berry – A dentist-recommended version of Bubble Tape, a mix of grape and blue raspberry
• Candy Cane – Seasonal
• Tangy Tropical
• Cola Party
• Groovy Watermelon

All of the various flavors of Bubble Tape are also sold in King Size, which is 9 feet of 2.7 meters of gum or Mega Rolls, which are 10 feet or 3 meters of gum.

Most of these varieties can still be tracked down via online sellers. You are not likely to find Bubble Tape for sale at the grocery store anymore as this product has apparently aged into the classic candy category for most markets. Thankfully, the product has been successful enough for the Wrigley Company that they continue to sell it, even though they have changed the markets that they are working with to do so.

Remember that supplies of these products are less plentiful these days, so the Candy Cane variety and things like the sour versions of this gum will be harder to find most of the year and will also probably sell out quite rapidly. It might be wise to simply jump on getting these flavors when you come across them if you are really excited about getting to try them. Bubble Tape keeps quite well, so you should have no trouble keeping extra gum around for a while so you can share it with friends or family.

Livery

This gum has an interesting marketing history as the product was sold in plastic containers rather than normal gum wrappers. This means that Bubble Tape doesn’t look like other gum products when it is sitting on the shelf. If you don’t have any awareness of the brand to start with, you might not realize what the product in front of you is when you are confronted with some Bubble Tape in the wild.

The various flavors of this gum were always indicated with different colored containers, and the graphics and other kinds of eye-catching contributions to the styling varied over the decades. There were almost always lots of sparkly and cartoonish add-ons for the specialty flavors, but the regular, original flavor has remained much the same since the product was first sold in the 90s.

The original product is now called “Awesome Original,” and it is still sold in a bubble gum pink container with the original 90s-inspired font. The accents of the label are yellow, and the Hubba Bubba logo is plainly indicated at the top of the container, but that is about it for the fanfare associated with the original product.

Some of the seasonal and specialty flavors have different fonts and lettering used in their marketing efforts, but the Hubba Bubba logo remains much the same. The grippy ridges that were added to the Bubble Tape containers in the later 90s are still used for most of the varieties, creating a bit of interest in what would otherwise be a pretty plain plastic case for a huge roll of gum.

Logo

Marketing

Like any product born in the 90s, Bubble Tape enjoyed success because of a variety of really strange and wonderful ad campaigns. Cartoons and some classically 90s editing were used to generate all of the most memorable ads that the brand used to get a foothold in the gum market.

Many people who grew up in the 90s remember slogans like, “It’s 6 feet of fun….for you, not them!” These ads were directed specifically at kids and usually featured an adult naysaying the use of gum and indicating that gum chewing was bad. 

There were other kinds of slogans that delivered results for the brand as well, like the “How much can you handle” slogan, which was aimed at a more general demographic. These ads almost always showed the gum unraveling and unraveling and unraveling throughout the commercial until there was a ton of it on the ground or being eaten by the people in the commercial.

The newer ads feature anthropomorphic Bubble Tape dispensers talking to one another and engaging in activities that ultimately always lead to one of the rolls unraveling dramatically. Currently, there are no new ads being run for Bubble Tape as it seems to have entered the classic candies and specialty product marketing phase of its life. Word of mouth mostly carries the brand now, but that’s okay since many people love Bubble Tape and continue to want to buy it.

The crazy ads that drew people to this product line in the 90s must have done their jobs because most people who remember the crazy ad campaigns associated with this gum continue to be motivated to track down Bubble Tape to enjoy even today.

Pictures

Ads:

A classic Hubba Bubba ad:

A “How Much Can you Handle” ad: