Before becoming one of the most tense parts of a football match, the addition to regular time supposedly had a naming problem. At least in the version of history that EXTRA Gum presented in the Birth of Extra Time campaign.
The film takes audiences back to the 19th century, where a referee is trying to find a name for the minutes in which a single play can change the final result. The players offer increasingly worse suggestions, the debate grows louder, and the solution is ultimately delivered by Chewbert, the brand’s new mascot. The chewing gum in his hands gives the referee the answer that had been in front of him all along: Extra Time.
The deliberately fictional story allowed the brand to enter football culture without a traditional sports sponsorship or an attempt to give the product a more important role than it has. The brand name became the foundation of the entire idea, while serious acting, historical set design and understated comedy maintain the credibility of a world in which a nonsensical version of events is treated as real.
The campaign was developed by BBDO Chicago as a continuation of the new Chew into It platform, which positions chewing as a small ritual accompanying moments that demand full attention. Instead of further dramatising them, EXTRA connects itself with situations in which distractions already naturally disappear, from studying and spending time with friends to the final minutes of an uncertain match.
The spot aired in July during the final of this summer’s biggest international football tournament. The fictional story about the origin of extra time was therefore shown at the exact moment when the possibility of actual extra time carried the greatest weight.
The Birth of Extra Time followed the EXTRA Time Anthem project with Izzy Escobar and further expanded the space the brand had found within the language of sport. Instead of borrowing familiar football symbols, the campaign took an expression that has been used for generations and turned it into its own origin myth.
