Extra Gum's 'Max & Bill,' created by Energy BBDO in April 2019, is a two-minute narrative film launching Extra Refreshers Gum across the United States.
Extra Gum's Max & Bill Shows How Storytelling Sells Confectionery
Extra Gum's 'Max & Bill' is a two-minute narrative film released in the United States in April 2019 by Energy BBDO, Chicago, depicting an intergenerational friendship between a young boy and an elderly man formed through checkers games and shared sticks of gum, created to support the national launch of Extra Refreshers Gum.
The campaign entered the United States market on April 24, 2019, according to The Drum. Its primary vehicle is a single online film running approximately two minutes, accompanied by three media assets in total. The work was produced for Extra Gum under the Mars Wrigley portfolio and was designed to extend the brand's long-running 'Give Extra, Get Extra' platform — a creative and commercial proposition that Energy BBDO had been developing since at least 2013, as documented by the IPA and Warc. Within that platform, 'Max & Bill' occupies the same strategic register as earlier narrative executions while introducing a new product and a new emotional relationship type: intergenerational male friendship.
The film follows Max, a young boy, who encounters Bill, an older man, in a park. Their friendship grows through recurring checkers matches and the ritual of sharing Extra Gum. The story advances to a moment where Max visits Bill at his residential care facility, marking both the depth of their bond and the quiet emotional stakes that have accumulated across the runtime. The narrative approach positions Extra Gum not as a breath-freshening commodity but as a catalyst for human connection — a brand role that the 'Give Extra, Get Extra' platform has consistently claimed across the United States. The campaign's score on Clapboard's proprietary creative effectiveness index is 74 out of 100.
Energy BBDO made a deliberate strategic choice to anchor a product launch in long-form storytelling rather than feature-led communication. The United States chewing-gum market was valued at approximately five billion US dollars in 2019, according to Ken Research, representing a meaningful commercial arena in which brand differentiation carries real weight. Within that market, Mars Wrigley and Mondelez together represented nearly sixty percent of global dollar sales around the same period, according to data compiled by DataM Intelligence, meaning Extra Gum operates in a duopoly-adjacent competitive environment where distinctive positioning is not optional.
Mondelez's Trident and Mars Wrigley's own sub-brands compete directly with Extra in the mainstream stick-gum segment across the United States. In a category where functional claims — freshness, whitening, sugar-free formulation — are easily replicated, emotional brand equity becomes the primary differentiator. The 'Give Extra, Get Extra' platform, as evaluated by the IPA and reported by Warc, generated more than eighty-five million US dollars in incremental value sales over its active period and reversed a measurable sales decline for the brand. 'Max & Bill' inherits that proven strategic architecture and applies it to a product extension rather than rebuilding from a different premise.
The consumer insight underlying the campaign is consistent with a broader pattern the brand had established: gum is shared, and sharing is relational. Approximately fifty-five percent of the United States population chewed gum in 2019, according to DataM Intelligence, making the act of offering a piece of gum a near-universal social gesture. By dramatising that gesture between two characters separated by roughly six decades, Energy BBDO widened the target aperture for Extra Refreshers Gum beyond a youth-skewing confectionery buyer and positioned the product as relevant to any moment of human connection.
The film was directed by Pete Riski through production company Rattling Stick US, as documented by Ads of the World and Horizont. Riski's approach to the material is observational rather than sentimental in register — the friendship between Max and Bill accumulates through small repeated gestures rather than a single dramatic revelation, a structural choice that places the emotional weight on rhythm and time rather than on a single plot turn.
The creative team at Energy BBDO, Chicago, was led by Chief Creative Officer Andrés Ordóñez, with Executive Creative Directors Pedro Pérez and Josh Gross overseeing the work. Creative direction was handled by Manuel Torres and Alejandro Juli. The film's visual execution was shaped by Art Director Elaine Kalvelage, with copy by Cassidy Buzin. Production was managed by Head of Integrated Production John Pratt and Producer Maddie Gorman, with Executive Art Producer Liz Miller-Gershfeld overseeing still and moving image assets.
Music plays a structurally significant role in the campaign. The song 'Every Age,' performed by Jacob Banks, was selected and supervised by Executive Director of Music Daniel Kuypers, as documented by Ads of the World. Banks's vocal register — warm, unhurried, carrying a quality of accumulated experience — mirrors the tonal intention of the film itself. The song title's direct resonance with the intergenerational premise of Max and Bill is not incidental; it frames the friendship as something that transcends demographic category, reinforcing the widened audience logic established at the strategic level. The combination of Riski's restrained direction, the BBDO creative team's narrative construction, and Banks's score produces a film that earns its emotional conclusion rather than engineering it through conventional advertising shorthand.
No verified performance data for the 'Max & Bill' campaign is publicly available in isolation. The campaign was not associated with a standalone effectiveness submission to the IPA, Effie, or AME Awards at the time of writing, and no sales figures specific to the Extra Refreshers Gum launch have been attributed to this film by Mars Wrigley or Energy BBDO in publicly documented sources.
Structural analysis supports a case for effectiveness, however. The campaign inherits the 'Give Extra, Get Extra' platform, which the IPA and Warc documented as generating more than eighty-five million US dollars in incremental value sales and reversing the brand's sales decline in the United States over its active period. 'Max & Bill' replicates the platform's proven mechanics: a two-minute narrative film, a ritualised sharing moment, a relationship that develops across time, and a musical track chosen for emotional precision. Each of those elements was present in earlier executions — 'Origami' and 'The Story of Sarah and Juan,' both documented by the Marketing Society and AME Awards — that collectively established the platform's commercial credibility.
The Clapboard Score for 'Max & Bill' is 74 out of 100, reflecting strong creative craft and strategic coherence within a well-established platform architecture, with room above for breakthrough novelty. The campaign's use of intergenerational male friendship as its central relationship type represents a genuine incremental addition to the Extra Gum narrative universe, which had previously focused on romantic and familial bonds. Whether that expansion translated directly into measurable Extra Refreshers Gum sales remains undocumented in the public domain.
'Max & Bill' is a two-minute narrative film created by Energy BBDO for Extra Gum, released in the United States in April 2019. The film depicts an intergenerational friendship between a young boy and an older man, united by shared games of checkers and sticks of Extra Refreshers Gum, extending the brand's 'Give Extra, Get Extra' platform.
Pete Riski directed 'Max & Bill' through production company Rattling Stick US, as documented by Ads of the World and Horizont. The Energy BBDO creative team was led by Chief Creative Officer Andrés Ordóñez, with Executive Creative Directors Pedro Pérez and Josh Gross, and Creative Directors Manuel Torres and Alejandro Juli overseeing the work.
'Every Age,' performed by Jacob Banks, is the song used in 'Max & Bill,' as documented by Ads of the World. Music supervision was handled by Energy BBDO's Executive Director of Music Daniel Kuypers. The song's title directly reflects the campaign's intergenerational premise and was chosen to reinforce the emotional tone of the film.
The 'Max & Bill' campaign supported the national United States launch of Extra Refreshers Gum in April 2019, according to The Drum. The film extended the existing 'Give Extra, Get Extra' brand platform, which Energy BBDO and the IPA documented as generating more than eighty-five million US dollars in incremental value sales across its active period.
'Max & Bill' continues the 'Give Extra, Get Extra' narrative tradition established by Energy BBDO, which previously produced 'Origami' and 'The Story of Sarah and Juan,' both documented by the Marketing Society and AME Awards. Where earlier films depicted romantic and familial bonds, 'Max & Bill' introduces intergenerational male friendship as the campaign's emotional subject within the United States market.
The Extra Gum 'Max & Bill' campaign receives a Clapboard Score of 74 out of 100. This reflects strong creative craft and strategic coherence within a well-proven platform architecture, with the intergenerational friendship angle representing a genuine expansion of the Extra Gum narrative universe in the United States confectionery advertising space.
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