Mentos, the confectionery brand owned by Perfetti van Melle and distributed by Stuart Alexander in Australia, revealed its latest global campaign, Mentos Mentors, earlier this month.
Mentos Mentors is a simple social experiment that shows nowadays we’ll do anything to avoid a real-life connection.
Making a friend when we were kids was second nature, so with the help of a few uninhibited five-year-olds who play the role of mentors, Mentos is encouraging Australians to share their Mentos with others – on the bus, at a café, or in the park – to spark new connections because, ‘Who says no to Mentos?’
The media campaign is running across Facebook and Instagram, with stills and additional 15 second and two minute clips driving people to offer a Mentos to someone new, as a ‘real-life friend request’. So far, the campaign has reached 5.2 million people.
Rolled out locally by Mentos’ agency partners Tongue and JOY, the campaign features a hero two minute film where children mentor adults as they start conversations with complete strangers. In three weeks, the clip has attracted 1.6 million views and 37K engagements.
Country Manager at Perfetti van Melle, Samantha Hansen, explains that the campaign delivers on the Mentos mission to help people create fresh connections “Mentos is a well-known, well-loved product. So wherever you go, when you meet someone new, one thing you can be sure of is a mutual love for Mentos. Every Mentos roll has the potential to connect two people, it provides a conversation starter, all you need to do is offer.
“We’re excited by how Australians have responded to our Mentos Mentors campaign,” she says. “The campaign resonates, people get that it feels hard to spark a conversation with someone new, it’s been great to see comments that the videos have inspired them to look up from their phone and share a Mentos”.
The online video was created by BBH London and directed by Matt Pollock. In Australia, Tongue is Mentos’ social media and creative agency and JOY is its media agency.
