No purchase necessary, except when it is (Bubble Gum Weekend)

It's been years since I've done this feature, but I've found such a ridiculous example of a bubble gum commercial that I couldn't resist analyzing it here.

Nobody bubbled in this Bubble Yum ad from 1986. In fact, nobody even chewed gum. The ad is a sweepstakes promotion in which chewers and blowers could win He-Man or She-Ra action figures...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AMhioylMTAU

According to the commersh, you win if one of the inner wrappers for one of the individually wrapped slabs o' BG inside a pack of Bubble Yum is emblazoned with the words "YOU WON!" But the ad also features these words on the screen: "NO PURCHASE NECESSARY."

Uh, how do you know what the inner wrapper says if you don't actually buy the product?

The winning wrappers also instruct chewers and blowers to consult the outer wrapper to claim their prize. Yes, the outer wrapper that inevitably gets torn to shreds by chewers and blowers digging into their favorite sweet. I've been around bubble gum enough to know things like this. The text on the screen in the commercial also says you have a 1 in 59 chance of winning. Sorry, I don't think the odds are anywhere near that good. I remember people in 1986 chewing Bubble Yum like it was going out of style, and I don't remember anyone winning this game. There was some girl in my 8th grade class who constantly shoveled huge piles of Bubble Yum into her cavernous mouth at the close of each school day. I can't believe she didn't burn through 59 pieces in a single week. Yet I never saw her playing with He-Man toys.

She better claim her prize soon, because the ad says prizes must be claimed by December 31, 1986.