Finding My Voice: Reflections on Brand Speak
The D&AD New Blood Awards challenged our collaborative team to reposition Extra Gum for Gen Z's evolving wellness culture, under the theme "Chew (You) Good." The core objective was to make gum culturally relevant and emotionally supportive, a significant shift from its traditional functional positioning (D&AD, 2025). This required a deep dive into the nuanced landscape of Gen Z's anxieties and coping mechanisms.
D&AD Extra
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3 min
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Mar 28, 2025
The Brief & Initial Problem: Beyond Fresh Breath
Our initial brief highlighted a critical challenge: how to transform a ubiquitous product like gum into a meaningful part of a young person's emotional well-being. The target audience—teens aged 14-17—were identified as valuing authentic, accessible wellness strategies, with 76% defining wellness as 'anything that makes you feel good,' often rejecting idealized filters in favour of genuine 'realness' (Ypulse, 2024; BeReal, 2023). This laid the foundation for our research.
Research Deep Dive: Unearthing Gen Z's Emotional Landscape
Our research process was multi-faceted and deliberate, blending existing data with qualitative insights to truly understand our target audience:
Audience & Trend Analysis (Discovery Phase): We commenced our process by analyzing macro trends affecting Gen Z. This involved systematically gathering information that identified this demographic as often dubbed "Gen Anxious," facing unprecedented stressors from global crises to social pressures (Paul, Unit 2 PPU Briefing, 2025). This initial research established the pervasive need for accessible, everyday coping mechanisms, framing the core problem our design sought to address.
Cultural Immersion (Qualitative Exploration): To gain a more visceral understanding of Gen Z's preferences and cultural touchpoints, we employed an unconventional yet highly effective qualitative method: my niece, who falls within the target demographic, was tasked with building a Pinterest board reflecting her interests and current trends. This iterative process of observing and analyzing authentic visual data, prominently featuring viral collectibles like Sonny Angels, allowed us to tap directly into the aesthetic and emotional resonance of the target audience's daily lives, bypassing traditional market research limitations.
Brand & Contextual Inquiry (Critical Framing): Our branding team, working alongside an advertising team, initiated a critical inquiry process into the initial brief's implications for Extra Gum's existing brand perception and heritage. We systematically deliberated on key questions: "Why reposition the entire packaging? How would this shift impact the brand's existing consumer perception and overall brand value?". This proactive questioning and strategic foresight ensured our subsequent design direction was not only innovative but also respectful of established brand equity and market dynamics.
Key Insights & Strategic Pivot
The research culminated in a powerful, actionable insight: Gen Z finds comfort and solace in their emotional support objects. This realization fundamentally transformed our design approach, suggesting that gum, when reframed through a tactile lens, could become one of these objects. We strategically pivoted beyond a simple "Sonny Angels integration" idea, realizing that the act of engaging with gum held inherent therapeutic potential. This refined insight directly led to the core concept that peeling is a fidget-friendly, tactile therapy.
Process Breakdown: Designing for Emotional Release
Our methodology unfolded through a series of structured yet adaptive collaborative design sprints, rigorously driven by research insights and continuous feedback:
Challenging the Premise (Initiation & Re-framing): Initially, the advertising team presented a pre-determined campaign idea. Our branding team, however, took decisive initiative by questioning the holistic impact of such a visual overhaul. This proactive stance instigated an iterative process of critical dialogue and concept refinement, ensuring our strategic direction was rooted in validated research from the outset.
Concept Development (Iterative Ideation): We systematically explored and refined several concepts, including the "Extra Time Capsule Pack" and "Extra 'Chew Companion'," through structured ideation sessions. This deliberate filtering process ultimately honed in on the "Extra Endless Fidget Sticker" idea, which served as the foundational concept for the "Peel Some Extra Pack". This concept was then meticulously developed to integrate "Affirmation Layers," "Chew Trackers," "Peel to Feel," and "Stress Busters" directly into the packaging design, ensuring multi-functional engagement.
Prototyping & Visualization (Materialization & Feedback Loop): We translated abstract concepts into tangible forms by developing visual prototypes, including peelable gum packs and interactive billboards. This critical step allowed us to materialize our design vision and solicit initial feedback, facilitating alignment with the advertising team and enabling further refinement of the user experience.
Collaborative Workflow (Operationalizing Team Synergy): As a cross-disciplinary team, our collaborative process was meticulously managed. We leveraged communication tools like Microsoft Teams and WhatsApp for real-time discussions. The implementation of a RACI matrix was instrumental in ensuring clarity on roles and responsibilities—Simleen and Swarangi systematically handledprototyping, while Pallavi and Isavella strategically focused on overall direction. Despite challenges such as "time lag and poor brief delegation," our iterative workflow, graphically detailed in "The Lights & Shadows Of Our Creative Process", facilitated continuous team input, strategic re-direction, and efficient problem-solving throughout the project lifecycle.
Outcome & Learning
The culmination of this rigorous process was the "Peel Some Extra Pack" and accompanying "Stress-Relief Installations," transforming gum packaging into an interactive, stress-relieving tool. This project underscored the profound power of research-led, process-driven design to uncover deeper consumer needs and strategically reposition a brand for cultural relevance, demonstrating how purposeful packaging can transcend its utilitarian function to become an emotional support object for Gen Z.
References
BeReal. (2023). User Behaviour Report. BeReal Inc.
D&AD. (2025). New Blood Awards Brief Pack. [Online]. Available at: https://www.dandad.org [Accessed 10 June 2025].
Paul, J. (2025). Unit 2 Professional Practices Unit Briefing. (Verbal communication/Unit Guide).
Smith, A. (2016). Effects of chewing gum on cognitive function. Appetite, 105, pp. 221–228.
Simleen Virdi - Collab Unit - Ate Star Dust.pdf. (Your own Collaborative Unit portfolio as an in-text reference).
Ypulse. (2024). Gen Z Wellness Trends. [Online]. Available at: https://www.ypulse.com [Accessed 10 June 2025].
