In a memorable scene in 'Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory,' the 1971 film, Gene Wilder, who plays an eccentric confectioner, displays a piece of gum that changes flavor while being chewed, replicating a three-course meal by tasting first like tomato soup, then roast beef, then blueberry pie. Now Stride, the 4-year-old brand from the Cadbury division of Kraft Foods, has brought the idea to life with the introduction of Stride Shift, two gum varieties that change flavors, called Berry-to-Mint and Citrus-to-Mint. In a recent television commercial for Stride Shift by the New York office of JWT, part of WPP, a focus group of young people is gathered around a conference room table when a voice over an intercom tells them to proceed. An actor begins to chew and, awestruck, says, 'My gum just changed flavors.' Then, panicked, he shouts, 'What's happening to me?' prompting an actress to throw a glass of water in his face, only to have her gum switch flavor and, when she panics, prompting someone else to throw water at her. The scene shifts to a room of middle-aged marketers who wince as they watch the chaos on a monitor. Misguided marketers and physical humor are recurring motifs of Stride commercials. To underscore the gum's long-lasting flavor, earlier spots showed marketers tracking down consumers to force them to spit out their gum. In one spot, a chewer crossing the street while talking on his cellphone is suddenly butted by a ram and coughs up his gum, at which point a Stride van screeches to a halt and marketers dash out to retrieve the gum from the pavement. Tonally the ads are 'Jackass' meets 'The Office,' said Tom Christmann, an executive creative director at JWT. Sugarless gum advertising tends to highlight benefits like freshening breath and even whitening or strengthening teeth, but Stride forgoes such claims because it is less relevant to its target market of 'teens, college-goers and gamers,' said Gary Osifchin, director of marketing at Stride. 'Stride speaks to younger consumers who chew gum not for functional reasons but for emotional reasons,' Osifchin said. 'Younger consumers have a disdain for the ordinary, and they like to be snapped out of boredom.' According to Cadbury, gum consumption is highest among young consumers: 'Superheavy' users who chew more than 25 pieces a week represent about 25 percent of those age 12 to 17, but that drops to less than 15 percent of those 18 to 24. Cadbury, with other brands including Trident and Dentyne, hopes Stride will help retain chewers who otherwise, as one internal research document put it, 'age out of the category early.' In the $2.2 billion sugarless gum market, Stride is the fourth largest-selling brand with an 8.9 percent share of the market and $200 million in sales for the 52 weeks ending April 18, according to SymphonyIRI Group, a market research firm whose data does not include Wal-Mart. The third largest brand, behind Wrigley's Orbit and second-place Trident, is Wrigley's 5 gum, which was introduced in 2007. Both Stride and 5 cut back on advertising in 2009, with Stride spending at $26.6 million, down from $39.8 million in 2008, and 5 gum spending at $27.8 million in 2009, down from $48.5 million, according to Kantar Media. The 5 brand aims at consumers ages 12 to 24, according to Paul Chibe, vice president of the United States gum and mint divisions at Wrigley, a division of Mars. While other Wrigley's brands promote oral benefits (Orbit promises a 'just brushed clean feeling,' and Eclipse 'incredibly fresh breath'), 'for 5 it's about creating that great sensory experience that stimulates them,' Chibe said. The brand's latest flavors, React Fruit and React Mint, claim to have a manna-like quality because, as marketing materials put it, 'everyone experiences it differently.' A new 5 React commercial by Energy BBDO in Chicago, part of the BBDO Worldwide unit of the Omnicom Group, was shot in the science-fiction style of the 'Matrix' movies. In the spot, which will have its premiere on May 17, two women and a man sit side by side as a large mechanical arm squirts out an amorphous material, which to one woman appears as the shape of a flower, to the other woman as a hawk, and to the man as an octopus. The spot's otherworldly aesthetic, and the intrigue about the gums' flavor, are 'all about building that deep emotional relationship with consumers so that consumers are with you on a journey,' Chibe said. Not everyone is onboard for that journey, however. GumAlert.com, a blog by two gum enthusiasts, Shannon Spare and Katie Reilly, has reviewed several 5 flavors favorably, but Reilly wrote in a review that the two new 5 React flavors were too enigmatic. 'Much like 'Cousin Bill' who reintroduces himself at a family wake, no one's quite sure how these flavors fit in the family,' she wrote. Similarly for Stride, the blog has lauded many flavors, but not the latest Stride Shift varieties. 'I guess technically it changes flavor, but from the get-go you taste both the mint and citrus,' Reilly said in a telephone interview. 'At the beginning it's an orangey mint flavor, and then it's a minty orange flavor, but orange and mint don't go together -- no one wants to drink orange juice after brushing their teeth.' 