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Nicolette DiMauro

Ashley Humphries

English 1101-0002

04/03/15

Mentos Advertisement & Anti-Advertisement

Mentos originated in 1932 by the Van Melle brothers. They had an idea to create a

circular mint with a harder exterior and a chewy inside, which was produced to the market

in 1948 by Jim Mentos. This product was launched in the Netherlands and made its way to

the United States through television marketing. Mentos always aimed to have humorous

marketing techniques, in the belief that it would draw in potential customers. Mentos

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advertising agency in another country submitted this advertisement to Mentos but it was

rejected because of the distasteful message it overall portrayed. The creator clearly went

over the top in the ad I’m revising, thankfully enough Mentos saw it as highly inappropriate

and “fat shaming”. (Wade, Lisa) Originally the advertisement was extremely judgmental,

overly self-centered and offensive to oversized women. Now after carefully analyzing all

the minute details, I changed the wording and visuals while keeping the structure the same.

Originally, the Mentos advertisement extremely criticized heavyset women or

anyone without a petite body figure. It is strongly emphasized that in order to be

“beautiful” in our society you have to be skinny, little to no body fat and a tiny waist. In this

advertisement, this generalization is perceived when the skinny girl says, “I love hanging

out with you. All the boys keep looking at me” to the heavyset girl. While she is stating what

she feels to be true, she is holding her up in the air like an inadequate object so aggressively

that the heavyset girls shoe is falling off. That statement alone is showing how the long

legged, skinny waist, petite girl believes that she is overall prettier in the eyes of men. She

is telling her “friend” that she is basically using her to make her own qualities stand out.

Mentos then adds the phrase at the bottom, “selfishness without guilt”. This makes the

advertisement more insensitive, emphasizing that this product will allow you to say what

you feel without the consequences of feeling cruel, which is a false advertisement. Another

sign of false advertisement in this image is how the skinny girl is drawn; emphasizing how

narrow her waist is which is incredibly exaggerated, similarly how the fat girl almost looks

like a bubble. They made this difference between the two girls so drastic that it makes it

seem like they have nothing in common, when in reality they are more alike then the

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advertisement portrays. The only thing separating them from looking equal in the eyes of

men is a certain percent of body fat, which doesn’t define who you are and never will.

The creator of this advertisement centered his/her entire idea on the fact that men

today sadly focus all their attention on the skinner girls as they find them more attractive

and see the heavyset population as something much less and not even acknowledgeable.

This representation has absolutely nothing to do with the product being presented. The

only way this image could have anything to do with the product is if, they are representing

the heavyset girl as a Mento because of her shape and all the guys are looking at her

because of the product not because of how beautiful she is or isn’t. That idea is so far

fetched and still distasteful but the only way I see a possible connection. Publishing this

advertisement could have had negative reactions and lead to the younger generation seeing

this on television or even on paper and thinking it’s socially expectable to treat others this

way. Younger children tend to believe everything they see and hear to be true no matter if

it is accurate. That alone could of caused a ripple effect and little girls and boy would think

its okay to treat others that way. The slogan for Mentos is “stay fresh” and this graphic

designer decided to make a play on words. The humor the advertisement expanded on was

the word fresh, as it can mean either nasty or refreshing. The fresh sense of humor is easy

to see in the illustration and text but it is still not acceptable to make the overweight girl

feel as an accessory for the petite girl to carry around. When deciding how to advertise a

particular piece of merchandise, you have to think of all the possibilities and which one will

bring the best out of your product. Creating a desire is a strong marketing technique and

the original message just didn’t make you feel a need to encourage this behavior instead it

made you feel bad for the overweight girl, which is poor advertisement. Another quality of

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successful advertising methods is repetition. Repetition can help persuade your audience

to want to buy your product because after hearing something over and over again in a

positive way, it will raise the changes in more costumers wanting to purchase the product.

However, in the case of the original offensive advertisement, repletion made the message

worse. Depending how you use certain techniques, it could either help your persuasion

process tremendously or it can completely backfire. Lastly, the creator of this

advertisement should have placed their self as a potential buyer and consumer. Would they

feel the need to buy this “mouthwatering” candy if they were over weight and felt the

offensive message aimed towards their self in particular?

Mentos is a “mouthwatering” candy but it’s equally enjoyable for everyone. The

audience for this product is wide spread, anyone who essentially wants a chewy candy

while at the same time having a breath mint. However, this advertisement changes the

audience more towards the slimmer population of girls. I for one would not want to buy

this product if I was self-conscious about my figure because its very offensive and I would

not want to support the company by giving them profit. Mentos is supposed to be about

freshening your breath while enjoying a delicious candy at the same time. Nowhere does

this product persuade someone to act rash and criticize the ones around you. Instead its

about the long lasting freshness which can more likely go along with an advertisement

aiming to promote long lasting friendships.

The anti- advertisement I created is aimed to show how two people can essentially

bring out the best in each other. Nobody is perfect but we all have certain qualities that

stand out and we should be able to feel confidant with who we are. Building another up,

instead of tearing down their self-esteem is the message I’m hoping to portray to viewers.

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This candy is essentially sweet but the original advertisement was sour and that’s my

purpose in changing it. The audience of my anti- advertisement is of all ages and anyone

who wants to indulge in a mouth freshening tasty mint. In the creation of this anti-

advertisement, I fist started off by changing the girls displayed in the advertisement. I

changed them to two girl of equal size with a little more muscle and strength. In the main

caption, the one girl is now saying, “I love hanging out with you. We bring out the best in

each other.” My purpose in doing this was to eliminate boys’ opinion and make it more

about friendship. I took out the Mentos single pack and changed it to Mentos sharing pack

to underline how this anti-advertisement isn’t singular or selfish. I also changed the phrase

under that to, “selflessness without regret” because I wanted to keep it along the same line

as the original advertisement but it needed an opposite message. Nobody would want to

live with guilt so this new message is showing you potentially how great it feels to

encourage other and in return have the same done to you. Being selfless is a quality

everyone should portray and creating images that emphasize that could cause others to

follow in those footsteps and act out that character trait. Ideally, I wanted this

advertisement to be up lifting and encouraging. Friends aren’t there to point out your flaws

and this improved advertisement I created shows that. Lastly, I changed the words on the

bottom left from Mentos’ surprising, to Mentos’ friendship. It shouldn’t be surprising to

anyone that your friend is truly there for you, to be a positive influence that brightens your

day and you should do the same for him/her in return. For this advertisement, I think

displaying it on isles where the product itself is located will help draw in buyers and also

showing this new edited picture at the end of a Mentos commercial will really get the

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message out to my audience because television marketing has become a huge success over

the years.

Before creating the anti-advertisement I mentioned above, my other plan was to

have the heavyset girl holding the frail girl in the air with the same saying as the original, “I

love hanging out with you. All the boys keep looking at me.” The message would have

changed to self-satisfaction. I also would of needed to change the saying at the bottom from

“selfishness without guilt”, to “proud of who I am”. Guy still look at heavier girls and

acknowledge their presence even if they don’t find her attractive but who is to say that men

don’t even find overweight girls to be pretty in the first place? That is a stereotype that is

embedded in our society and needs a change. The only reason I didn’t follow through with

this idea of an anti-advertisement was because it still evolved around what guys tend to

think and make it seem like it all up to them to define if someone is beautiful or not and

that is very inaccurate. Both of the anti-advertisements I discussed are improvements from

the original and have a positive outlook on life but the one I went with changed the

message to be not about guys and more about what friendships should be based on,

bringing one up constantly.

In conclusion, I found a problem with this original Mentos advertisement and so did

the Mentos headquarters. It was never published because it was portraying a wrong

message of why you should have a “friend”, while at the same time being extremely

insulting towards an overweight girl. The humor for Mentos commercials and textual

advertisements are normally humorous and amusing but this on was just over the top and

had a negative feeling when you looked at the image and read the words that went along

with it. Their original product was in no way, shape or form a good idea in how to persuade

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the audience to want to buy and enjoy the product. However, now I truly think it is a much

better product just because of the message that goes along with it. It will capture the views

and potential buyers attention while at the same time being positive and uplifting,

promoting long lasting freshness, and a long lasting friendship.

Wade, Lisa. "Sociological Images." Sociological Images RSS. N.p., n.d. Web. 06 Sept.

2010.

"Welcome to Mentos." Mentos. N.p., n.d. Web. 08 Apr. 2015.

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