The Untold Truth Of Bubble Yum Gum

Any millennial or their parents who are reading this likely remember the heyday of Bubble Yum gum. But you may not know that this household name was actually created in a small town in Missouri by a stay-at-home mom, rather than in some fancy candy factory. As the story goes — and was detailed in the marketing book "Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind" — a homemaker in Fisk, Missouri created her own version of what she called "rubber bubblegum" and gave some to her son to share with his classmates at school. It quickly picked up some serious attention, and she sold the recipe to the Life Savers company in the early 1970s (via American Goodies). According to The Hershey Company, Bubble Yum's current parent company, the brand officially hit the market in 1973, and it quickly blew consumers away, so to speak.

Bubble Yum itself is arguably a household name — at least, it definitely used to be when most millennials were growing up. But the gum has also had some star power backing throughout its 50-year history under parent companies that were household names themselves, and still are today.

Bubble Yum was first introduced and marketed by Life Savers, Inc. for several years. In 1981, Life Savers– and all of the subsidiary brands under it — were bought by snack food giant Nabisco (via Mondelēz International). Then, at the turn of the new millennium, Nabisco sold off all of its breath mint and chewing gum brands as it underwent several structural changes after being acquired by Philip Morris International, and eventually merged with the Kraft food brand. In 2000, the mint and gum brands, including Bubble Yum, were all purchased by the Hershey Company for $135 million, at the time making it the third-largest gum manufacturer(per the New York Times). Hershey still makes and distributes Bubble Yum to this day, and remains in the top five gum manufacturers in the world (via Market Research Reports).

In the world of business, you don't just show up on the scene and completely overturn the market with your innovative new product without facing some swift backlash. Such was the case for Bubble Yum, when its soft gum became quickly beloved by bubble blowers young and old. As Candy Favorites tells it, around 1977, rumors started circulating, first among schoolchildren, that Bubble Yum gum was so soft and chewable because it was made with a secret ingredient — spider eggs.

According to Snopes — which did a full investigation of the rumors and has confirmed that they are totally false — horror stories were shared like gospel, including one of a girl waking up with webs all over her face, and another of several children dying after swallowing the gum (spider eggs or not, don't do that!). It was a nightmare for Bubble Yum, which saw sales start to plummet. So parent company Life Savers ended up spending around $100,000 to run a full-on counter-campaign to combat these rumors. Full-page ads were splashed across dozens of newspapers around the country. Eventually, the web of lies was untangled, the rumors died down and sales of Bubble Yum went back up.

Here's the thing — when you were a kid, and things like consuming as much sugar as possible, and winning all the bubble blowing contests were top priorities, Bubble Yum was the perfect gum. For all of us out there who aren't kids, not so much. As one Influenster put it, "as an adult this gum is awful. Full of sugar, over sweet, and horrible texture." And as Thrillist notes, Bubble Yum pieces are huge, and cause you to salivate quickly, making it really hard to talk. So popping a piece before a meeting or a phone call is pretty much impossible. Interestingly, countless reviews of Bubble Yum pointedly refer to the memories of childhood the gum brings back, rather than the joy of chewing it today. So maybe for grown millennials, Bubble Yum is best left in the past, or with the youngsters.

Bubble Yum has fans far and wide, young and old. And while big pink hunks of chewing gum are more typically expected on the baseball diamond, you might see it on the football field as well. That is, if you're watching a Seattle Seahawks game. Turns out, head coach Pete Carroll has a major affinity for chewing gum while on the job. Fans have noticed, so USA Today decided to find out exactly which pieces Carroll was popping. The paper spoke with the Seahawks' former statistician Todd Nielson, who revealed that Carroll specifically likes the 5-packs of original Bubble Yum.

USA Today assessed that this choice says a lot about Carroll as a coach — in a good way — writing "Bubble Yum is strong (in flavor) and reliable (in its structure), which is what you want in a head coach. If he had gone with a brand like Fruit Stripe, the Seahawks might have to reassess the head coaching position."

The COVID-19 pandemic was difficult for businesses and industries across the board. The same is true for gum brands like Bubble Yum who saw their bubble burst when it came to profit. Candy & Snack Today reported a roughly 30% drop in sales in the chewing gum sector during the peak of lockdowns in 2020. And you can blame quarantine above all else for changing our shopping and snacking habits (via Wired).

For one, impulse buys like gum, mints, candy — all those little things you really don't need but end up grabbing anyways while you're waiting in the checkout line — took major sales hits as people stayed home more, and went out shopping less (via Reuters). It's a lot easier to resist that temptation when you're having your groceries delivered. Secondly, if you're staying in all the time, or social distancing and wearing masks when you do go out, what do you need things like gum and mints for? No one can smell your breath from that far away (hopefully). The Hershey Company specifically reported a more than 20% drop in sales for mints and gum, including Bubble Yum, in the fourth quarter of 2020 (via Business Insider).

Now that masks are coming off, people are gathering, and we keep moving towards a normal, post-pandemic world, time will tell if we return to all of our old habits, including chewing bubble gum, in the same way as before.