Chris Brown's Hit Song, "Forever," Also a Wrigley's Gum Commercial is a Hard Piece to Swallow

When I first heard the lyrics of Chris Brown’s hit song, "Forever," I though the injection of Doublemint’s jingle, “Double your pleasure. Double your fun” was clever and catchy. Today it was revealed by Wrigley that Chris Brown had been commissioned by the company to write and perform the song as part of its effort to update the company’s image. Upon consulting the music video (see below), I noticed that 11 seconds in, Brown pulls out a stick of gum and my first reaction was disgust and outrage at having been deceived yet fascination at how Wrigley was able to get a “jingle” all the way to the top of the pop charts.

I’m a huge fan of product placement. If seeing my favorite TV character sip a certain branded beverage means that I don’t have to fast-forward through so many commercials, I’m all for it! I love that the characters on Gossip Girl as well as Sex and the City’s Carrie Bradshaw have Bluefly shopping bags strewn about their apartments (even though Bluefly doesn’t actually have any brick and mortar stores). I’m nostalgic for the days before product placement on NBC’s The Office was pulled due to conflicts between advertisers and the creative needs of the show. And I was angered by the pleas for the FCC to be further involved in product placement regulation once McDonald’s iced coffee cups were recently placed on the desk of morning show anchors on a Meredith Las Vegas TV Station.

Click for the full story.

To communicate with or to be contacted by the executives and/or companies mentioned in this column, link to the JackMyers Connection Hotline.

This post originally appeared at JackMyers.com.