Chewing Gum Stops Twins Being Spitting Images

We’re used to being told that chewing gum isn’t professional and can create negative perceptions of the type of person you may be.

Beldent gum, known better to us as Trident, created an experiment to turn this around and show the positive effects that chewing gum can have. Although this advert was uploaded to YouTube back in 2013, it has become popular again after winning eight Lions at Cannes – awards for the creative communications industry.

Taking sets of identical twins, Beldent set five pairs of twins next to each other with one key difference – one is chewing gum and the other isn’t.

Almost 500 people took part in the experiment where they were seated in front of a set of twins and asked questions including “Which one seems like he has more friends?” “Which one is the bad cop” and “Which one is most likely to fire you for asking for a raise?” The results typically showed that 73% positively favoured the twin who was chewing the gum, finishing with the caption “They aren’t identical. The one chewing gum makes a better impression”. 

Although the advert cleverly tries to change the social stigma attached to chewing gum we can’t ignore the use of biased questions against the non-chewer. Whilst the chewer is viewed to look more approachable and friendly, the non-chewer is made to look boring and harsh however if the questions were altered to “which one is most likely to run a work project in on time” and “which one is likely to cancel plans with you at last minute” as suggested by Bustle we’re sure that the results would alter in a more balanced way.

Ultimately we don’t think that this advert will change the opinions people have on chewing gum but we think we’ll stick to our Polo mints for now!