Case Studied
An old jingle's second act

Every brand with a long history eventually runs into the same problem: the assets that helped make it famous start to feel dated to the audience it needs next. A jingle, a mascot, a tagline, these things build recognition over decades, but recognition alone doesn't guarantee relevance with an audience that wasn't around when the asset was created.

Legacy brands have tried all kinds of fixes for this. Some retire the old asset altogether and start fresh. Others hand it to an agency to update with a modern remix. Mentos took a different approach.

This week, Case Studied explores how Mentos boosted Gen Z consideration by reintroducing its 1990s Freshmaker jingle.

The Brief

Mentos mints were invented in 1932 by brothers Michael and Pierre van Melle. The two owned the Dutch confectionary company van Melle and later combined with Italy's Perfetti in 2001, forming Perfetti Van Melle. Today, Mentos sells in more than 160 countries.

In the 1990s, Mentos introduced its "Freshmaker" jingle, a melody that became deeply recognizable and stuck around in culture for years.

As the years passed, Mentos began looking for ways to make the Freshmaker story resonate with the new generation. But rather than leaning solely on nostalgia, the brand set out to tell the story in a format that felt native to their target audience.

The Execution

Mentos partnered with The Goat Agency built a creator-led social campaign centered on keeping the original Freshmaker jingle intact while changing its delivery. The brand partnered with five comedy and music creators - Adam Waheed, That's a Bad Idea (Cooper & Curry), Aubrey Gavello, Carter Vail, and Kyle Gordon. They were each chosen for their ability to reach Gen Z at scale through their own established comedic and musical styles.

Instead of asking the creators to replicate a traditional ad, Mentos had them weave the jingle into their own existing content formats, using humor-forward storytelling, music-driven bits, and exaggerated visuals. The creators effectively served as translators, carrying the jingle into TikTok and Instagram feeds in a way that matched the platforms' native tone.

Once the organic content was live, Mentos identified the strongest-performing creator assets and layered paid media behind them across TikTok and Instagram, with platform-specific optimizations meant to maximize engagement and cost efficiency on each channel. The main strategy behind the campaign was to keep the jingle recognizable, and let the creators determine how it showed up.

Sponsored
We’ve already vetted your next marketing agency.

Vendry runs the agency search for you end to end:

• ✅ $0 for brands. No fees, no markups, ever to run a search

• ✅ 4,000+ vetted agencies across every channel and specialty

• ✅ Matched to your budget, stage, and goals, not a directory dump

• ✅ Shortlist in <7 days so you're hired and ready, not still searching in Q1

• ✅ Trusted by Shopify, Coca-Cola, Columbia Records & Burt's Bees

Hand off your search and let us do the heavy lifting, so you walk into 2027 with the right agency already in place

The Results

Over three months, the campaign generated 39.9 million total impressions, reaching 166.8% of its projected goal. Organic content alone drove a 5.15% engagement rate, more than 60% above Goat’s benchmark. Total engagements across the campaign topped 7.2 million, good for 130% above forecast.

On the paid side, media spend behind the top-performing creator content delivered 34.9 million impressions, 8% above benchmark, with a paid engagement rate of 19.87% that also exceeded the U.S. benchmark for the category. 

Beyond social metrics, Mentos reported a 4.7% lift in purchase intent and a 3% lift in association with its "Refresh Your Everyday" brand attribute, and said its mint business is growing faster than the overall mint category.

The Takeaways

1) Let audience behavior set the strategy. 

Mentos grounded its approach to this campaign around the insight that Gen Z doesn't experience brands through traditional advertising. Instead, they discover culture through the creators they already trust. That insight led the brand to influencer-led storytelling as the vehicle for evolving the Freshmaker narrative. 

Before locking in a campaign format, look at how your specific audience actually consumes information and where they place their trust. Letting that behavior shape the strategy, rather than defaulting to the format that worked for a previous audience, makes it more likely the execution will land as authentic.

2) Let creators keep their own voice.

Mentos selected five creators for their existing comedic and musical styles. And rather than perform a script written for a traditional ad, the brand had creators integrate Freshmaker into their own formats. That decision is likely why the content reads as entertainment more than a sponsored ad.

When working with creators, resist the urge to over-direct the execution. Of course, cover your necessary bases by briefing them on the required brand element that needs to appear. But after that, give creators room to produce content that fits their audience's expectations.

3) Use organic performance to guide paid spend. 

Rather than committing media dollars upfront, Mentos let the organic creator content run first and then put paid media behind the assets that were resonating strongly. This sequencing meant paid spend was reinforcing proven content instead of guessing at what would work. 

Consider structuring your campaigns in a way where organic testing informs paid allocation, rather than launching both simultaneously. It can be a more capital-efficient way to find out what's actually connecting with an audience before scaling spend behind it.

Reach into the inbox: Did you know you can advertise in the Case Studied newsletter? That means having a direct line to 41,000+ senior marketers. Check out rates and availability.