Social media is an unforgiving landscape for marketers. The Internet is ‘filled with stories of unprecedented commercial success as well as shattered dreams of hopeful online entrepreneurs’ (Baruh, 2010). “Marketers have long understood that consumers purchase products not just for their practical or utilitarian benefits but also for their symbolic value.” (Taylor, Strutton & Thompson, 2012) and the Wrigley’s 5X campaign is a great example of marketers utilising this insight to achieve campaign objective; a 5% rise in market share. Self-brand congruity is the theoretical term given to ‘the match between consumers’ self-concept (actual self, ideal self, etc.) and the user image of a given product, store, service etc’ (Sirgy, Lee, Johar & Tidwell, 2008), meaning consumers are more likely to engage with and buy products that align with their personal beliefs, interests and attitudes.

Through research, Wrigley discovered that their target audience, called ‘explorers’ as they love to have new and exciting experiences, all had one thing in common; an ‘alter ego…the imaginary version of themselves with unique powers which exists only in their mind’ (Wrigley, 2012). Using this insight, Wrigley teamed up with X-men to create 5X Mutant gum. Combining the fantasy world of X-men with their gum, Wrigley was able to ‘build an immersive brand experience which offered extraordinary scope to create compelling branded content, user-generated content & fan community engagement.’ (Wrigley, 2012).  

This campaign was so successful as it perfectly appealed to self-brand congruity by providing an online engagement experience in which users could ‘create their own mutant, battle other mutants and receive exclusive powers from on-pack codes’ (Wrigley, 2012). This meant users whose self-concept aligned with mutants, alter-egos and superpowers, which were now associated strongly with the 5 brand, would also feel strongly for the gum, leading to higher purchases as well as a strong earned-media presence. Taylor et al. argues that users share content online ‘to express a sense of identity’, so by creating a campaign that directly appealed to the self-concepts of their audience, 5X was able to ensure their message would be reposted, shared and Tweeted online, leaded to a much wider reach and higher number of impressions.