A teenage boy and a middle-aged woman find themselves in some sticky situations in “Stuck” (:30), a new spot for Juicy Fruit created by BBDO Chicago and directed by David Frankham of bicoastal Smuggler.
The commercial opens in a convenience store where each person lays claim to the last pack of Juicy Fruit gum. A tug of war ensues, but neither the boy nor the woman will let go, and they are forced to go through their every day lives together–each gripping one side of the pack of gum.
The resulting scenes are absurdly funny–for example, we see the boy taking part in a high school wrestling match, with both him and the woman maintaining their respective holds on the pack of gum. We also see the woman participating in her church choir, with the boy awkwardly swaying beside her as they both continue to clutch the gum.
SWEET SURRENDER
The latest spot in Juicy Fruit’s “Gotta have sweet” campaign, “Stuck” adds a new twist. “In this particular execution, we were trying to say that Juicy Fruit is now longer lasting, so these people are going to want it even longer,” BBDO Chicago creative director/art director Todd Hoffman explained.
And through the decidedly offbeat “Stuck,” BBDO Chicago aims to deliver that message to a target demographic of 12-to17-year-olds, according to creative director/copywriter Al Wyatt, who pointed out, “When we’ve talked to kids in focus groups, it seems like this humor really resonates with both boys and girls quite a bit.”
The aforementioned Frankham was hired to direct because his “sensibility for this kind of humor was an immediate connect for us,” BBDO Chicago director of broadcast production Diane Jackson shared, noting that the agency also has “a great relationship with Smuggler. We know that we always get the production value that we are looking for when we work with them.”
The BBDO Chicago creatives behind the concept for “Stuck,” copywriter Zach Hilder and art director Ryan Dickey, worked closely with Frankham to create the scenarios featured in the spot. “We had some of the boy’s ideas laid out,” Hilder said, “and we wanted [Frankham] to help come up with this woman’s world.”
The idea was to depict simple, everyday scenarios as opposed to outrageous situations. “Shaving your legs may not seem that weird,” Hilder mused, “but when there is a 16-year-old kid stuck to you, it’s pretty weird.”
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Bryan Beaulieu and Wanda Lee Evans were cast in the lead roles in “Stuck.” Looking back on the casting process, Frankham recalled, “A lot of [actors] came in and wanted to play it as a joke, or really got it into it being this tug of war, and [Beaulieu and Evans] kind of got more into the feeling of, ‘Okay, we’re stuck.’ It was more of a stubborn thing with them.”
And that’s exactly how the agency creatives as well as Frankham wanted the spot to play. “We didn’t go for the joke. We took all the scenes very seriously,” Hilder said, “and the humor came out of the absurdity of the situation.”
Frankham and DP Igor Jadue Lillo shot “Stuck” (as well as a continuation of “Stuck” that won’t air until next fall and another Juicy Fruit spot called “Magician”) over the course of two 12-hour days. While building sets was an option, Frankham opted to shoot everything on location. “For me, going on location is always my first choice,” Frankham shared. “We wanted this to be grounded in reality.”
Luckily, “Stuck” didn’t call for outdoor locations as it rained throughout the two-day shoot. “Even in the rain, [Frankham and Smuggler] did such a good job–getting every location they promised,” Wyatt remarked.
Those locations included a house, a convenience store and a Catholic school that had a chapel where scenes from the Ray Charles biopic Ray were shot. “It was an all-girls school, and they do a lot of scholarships in the community of Inglewood,” Frankham said. “So it was really great to shoot there. You could tell they were happy to have us there and appreciated it.”
Once the shoot wrapped, Frankham sat down with editor Rick Lawley of The Whitehouse, which has offices in Santa Monica, New York, Chicago and London, to do a first cut. Frankham, who said it was his first time working with Lawley, praised the editor’s skills in finding the subtle takes that make the spot work.
The agency as well as the client were thrilled with the first cut. “I don’t think we changed one thing on the edit,” Hilder commented.
Composer Tom Schultz of Das Music, Los Angeles, composed a quirky track to accompany the spot.
Reflecting on the project, Frankham said working on “Stuck” was a lot of fun. “We spent so much time laughing on the set,” the director shared.
If anyone suffered, it was the actors. “They both had cramped hands by the end of the shoot,” Frankham said laughing.
While no one walks away with the gum at the end of “Stuck,” Dickey mused, “Wanda definitely would have won if they had really gone at it.”
