This will be my last post on the topic, I promise! But our suspicions about secret marketing campaigns existing everywhere has finally been validated.

Sharp-eared pop-music fans may have noticed a brief reference to an old chewing-gum jingle buried in “Forever,” Chris Brown’s top-10 hit. “Double your pleasure/double your fun,” the R&B singer croons in the chorus.

What listeners don’t know – and what Wm. Wrigley Jr. Co. planned to reveal Tuesday – is that the song is a commercial.

“Forever” is an extended version of a new Doublemint jingle written by Mr. Brown and scheduled to begin airing next month in 30-second spots for Wrigley’s green-packaged chewing gum.

And, not to give myself a pat on the back, but I did have a weird feeling about this one from the start. The gum jingle-infused lyrics just sound so forced in the song—and let’s face it, the song is super catchy but Chris Brown is no Kanye. (By the way, think he got any revenue from Klondike for that mention in “Stonger”? Hah!)

Back to how it all went down: Wrigley’s agency hired Chris Brown and his producers to re-write the popular Doublemint jingle, and then got him to expand this new jingle into a full-length song. The song was pushed to become a summer hit (which, it did) and, oh, right. Only then did Wrigley feel the need to actually tell the public, the radio stations, and the mass media that surprise! That song you like? It’s actually an ad.

Considering that the official YouTube site for “Forever” is filled with comments like “fawkn’ shexy song” and “omgee i luvv him disz isz me nd ma Boyfriends ’s song lol KEEP IT UP CHRIS” I don’t think that Brown’s core audience will falter too much because of this gaffe.

But the media-literate pop music crowd (Didn’t you hear? Cheesy pop is the new irony for hipsters!) is already assembling in protest. Gawker announced a boycott of Wrigley’s gum this morning after personally calling out everyone involved in the deal. “It will erode the public’s expectation of what “music” is. In a few years, kids won’t see any problem with the fact that all of their favorite songs are ads for one company or another.”

The official Wrigley press conference is tomorrow—we’ll follow this as it unfolds.

WSJ via Gawker.