Stride is a brand of sugar-free chewing gum introduced in 2006 and owned by Mondelez International, sold in packs of 14 pieces. In 2024, Mondelez discontinued sales of Stride in the United States, Canada, and Europe, but is still sold in China and Australia. It sold most of its chewing gum brands to Perfetti Van Melle in 2023, which didn't include the sale of Stride, to focus on other confections.
The “2.0” series was made available in February 2011 to upgrade some of the original flavors.[1]
Shift is a flavor changing gum sold in two flavors, Berry to Mint and Citrus to Mint. The packaging for each flavor has two colors representing the two main flavours. For Berry to Mint, the colors are magenta and light blue, while for Citrus to Mint, the colors are orange and light green. It was not sold in Canada.
Spark is a line of gum that comes in three flavors, Kinetic Mint, Kinetic Berry and Kinetic Fruit. One piece contains 25% of the Recommended Daily Allowance of Vitamin B6 and Vitamin B12, according to the label.
Stride was available only in the United States until January 2008, when the Spearmint, Sweet Peppermint and Forever Fruit flavors were first released in Canada, with the rest of the flavors made available later on.
In Europe, some Stride flavors were being sold under the Trident Senses brand, namely the Winterblue 2.0 (sold as Mint Breeze), the Forever Fruit 2.0 (sold as Tropical Mix) and the Sweet Peppermint 2.0 (sold as Rainforest Mint and recolored to green), as well as the Mega Mystery, sold as itself. The packaging is a little more elaborate than the traditional Stride box, with the exception of the Mega Mystery which remains the same. Some other flavors have been released, but they do not relate to any Stride flavors apart from some Shift flavors.
The Stride Mnemonic 'S' and package was created by a design and branding firm. [3] All packages of Stride include the Stride Mnemonic ’S’ except for Mega Mystery, which replaces the ’S' with a question mark (‘?’) on the front of the packaging. In 2014, the S was redesigned and is only on Spearmint, Peppermint, Winterblue, Nonstop Mint, Stride Spark Kinectic Mint and Fruit, and Sour Patch Kids. Sour Patch Kids is sold in five flavors: Redberry, Lime, Orange, Watermelon and Blue Raspberry.
Stride chewing gum was unveiled at the All Candy Expo in 2006, when, after three years of product development, Cadbury claimed that through the use of proprietary sweetener mannitol it had produced a gum with longer-lasting flavor. Cadbury marketed the gum as "The Ridiculously Long Lasting Gum".[4] Following competitive campaigning, New York based advertisers JWT were selected to handle the $50 million launch advertising,[5] creating a series of work-place related ads that proved popular with consumers, according to polls by USA Today. These ads include the CEO of Stride gum begging customers to buy more gum as was popular at first but lasted too long and nobody came back for more. (October 29, 2006) [6] In addition, Cadbury received an industry OMMA Award for online advertising creativity on September 25, 2007 for "Best Use of Gaming" in connection with its "The Ridiculously Long-Lasting Gaming Event", when on June 21, 2006. Stride teamed with Xfire to host a live "shoutcast" national videogame all-star challenge.[7] Stride chewing gum sponsored a worldwide trip by Matt Harding in order for him to produce a popular viral video on YouTube in 2006.[citation needed] Starting November 5, 2009, Cadbury in connection with Kongregate sponsored "The Longest Lasting Game" contest, challenging game developers to design a game based around endurance in one month.[8]
The growing gum market for Stride and other Cadbury-Adams brand Trident in the United States contributed to unexpectedly strong sales for the company in 2007.[9][10][11]
Stride was heavily product placed on the television series, Smallville, particularly during season 7 - episode 13, "Hero", which features Kryptonite - laced Stride bestowing Elastic Man powers on the character Pete Ross. The use of a decommissioned Stride factory for concerts is also central to that particular episode.[12]