TRIDENT LAYERS
That time we turned gum into currency.
A tri-layered gum launched without ever mentioning the layers. One line from the spot is still a meme fifteen years later.
THE CHALLENGE
Trident Layers was a tri-layered gum with multiple flavor profiles, which is a product feature, not an idea. Gum advertising at the time was mostly fresh-breath promises and attractive people chewing. The launch had to make a small product feel worth caring about.
WHERE I CAME IN
Made the appeal the premise, not the claim. A father offers to pay the babysitter in gum instead of cash. She takes it. The spot runs that absurdity out to its conclusion, with everyone in the film treating Trident Layers as legitimate currency. No one in it ever makes a claim about the product. They just behave as though it's worth more than money. Let the smallest moment close it. The spot ends on a lineman up a pole, left out of the arrangement: "No one ever pays me in gum." A complaint, not a pitch. It's the throwaway and it's the thing people kept.
Trident revived the “Nobody pays me in gum” line themselves on TikTok in 2022.
The closing line, still in circulation. GIFs via Tenor, meme template via Imgflip, entry on Know Your Meme.
ROLE
Concept, Art Direction, Design
CLIENT: Trident
AGENCY: JWT
SCOPE: TV, print
IMPACT
Trident led the US gum market with 23.8% share by 2011 and was the top-selling US gum brand by 2013
The closing line became a meme with its own Know Your Meme page and a dedicated Imgflip template, still generating versions more than a decade on
Trident revived the line themselves on TikTok in 2022