Thinking back on all the reasons why millennials might be “the way they are” (i.e., “ill-equipped”), one culprit (apart from helicopter parents) that shouldn’t be overlooked is the ongoing series of Mentos commercials that were on a loop throughout the 90s. Indeed, the first round of Mentos commercials that would make the Dutch (and, later Dutch-Italian—upon merging with Perfetti in 2001) brand a household name in America aired circa 1991, establishing the scotch mints as a staple of 90s pop culture. But, long before that decade, Dutch brothers Michael and Pierre van Melle came up with the idea for a peppermint-flavored candy in 1932 (clearly, they weren’t too worried about Hitler’s impact on European capitalism just yet). By the 60s and 70s, the “freshmaker” was appearing around the globe.
But one milieu it still had yet to really make strides in was the U.S. In response to an apparent sales stagnation throughout the 70s and 80s, the German marketing team at Pahnke & Partners managed to come up with something for Mentos that even they probably didn’t know the power of until it was unleashed. The VP of Marketing at Mentos, Liam Killeen, also certainly wasn’t aware that not only would it prompt such a positive reaction (at least in terms of sales), but, as time wore on, an entirely negative one. This elucidated by being verbally attacked by a cashier at a video store simply for wearing a jacket with the Mentos logo on it in 1996, when the Mentos commercials had reached an apex of oversaturation—so much so that the campaign had been referenced throughout an entire season of Baywatch, in Gen X movie staple Clueless (released in 1995) and in the Foo Fighters’ video for “Big Me” (released in 1996, with “Footos” replacing the Mentos name, along with Footos’ own slogan: “The Fresh Fighter”). It was the latter video’s director, Jesse Peretz, who summed up the commercials best as “total lobotomized happiness.” Perhaps this was how Europeans saw the “American way of life” from afar as they cashed in on its darkest side of all: a lust for everything related to capitalism. Or maybe life in the Netherlands (or Holland, if you prefer) really is that blissful, and the Dutch company was simply trying to impart its own form of “lobotomized happiness” onto Americans. Either way, from the American perspective, it translated into a parody—a totally ersatz view of the human condition, or, at best, a 1950s spin on the 1990s.
Whatever the case, the commercials were simultaneously mocked and obsessed over for their “camp” qualities. But the group it truly had a lasting effect on was millennials watching the boob tube with their elder Gen X siblings. Although Gen X had absorbed the commercials while still in their teens and twenties, millennials did so during more mentally susceptible years, letting the notion that any problem could be solved with an unrealistic approach and the flash of a smile seep irrevocably into their brains. As a new decade arrived with the 00s, perhaps many believed that millennials entering their own teens had quickly forgotten all about a commercial that was theoretically buttoned up with the rest of the 90s. But no, somewhere deep down, the “logic” (read: total illogic) presented in the Mentos commercials lingered within the millennial mind, dormant until activated in their adulthood, when it became quickly evident that it would take a lot more than a “lobotomy smile” and the popping of a Mentos to stave off antagonistic forces or even minor inconveniences.
And it was with this single planting of the idea that a simple, often non sequitur act could make all one’s problems melt away that Mentos created a monster in the next generation. By presenting the concept that, with the pop of a signature scotch mint, suddenly the problem-solving skills and/or acceptance of harsh realities one should already have to begin with will magically materialize, the company perpetuated millennial dependency on crutches that don’t actually work. The only thing that does work, or is real, is enduring hardship. That’s the true essence of existence, particularly if you’re born into non-affluent circumstances. The idea that we can “make lemonade out of lemons” with “no trouble at all” by rolling around in paint to fix the look of our suit, or ripping both heels of our shoes off when one of them breaks, or going through the backseat of someone else’s car to cross the street, or enlisting a group of construction workers to move our blocked car out of a parallel parking spot is part of the fantastical narrative that millennials were sold from the beginning of their youth. It’s not a coincidence that such indoctrination (and, truly, it can’t be overemphasized how frequently these commercials were playing) would lead to a major letdown later on in life, when it became clear that absolutely nothing could be solved with a plucky attitude or an illogical solution with no thought put into strategy (in that regard, former millennial golden child Elizabeth Holmes must have seen one too many Mentos commercials).
As for the thought put into Mentos’ advertising strategy, maybe it was pure, dumb luck that the company was able to tap into some kind of zeitgeist that presaged internet fandoms and fixations on seemingly “niche” things that would turn out to be a phenomenon as a result of “the kitsch factor” (incidentally, Killeen called the Mentos obsession, which extended to a then germinal internet, “Mentophilia”). Or maybe, beyond mere earnestness about a product meant to induce joy, the ad team was speaking to the age-old marketing belief that the more “irksome” an ad campaign, the more effective. And, irritating or not, Mentos secretly warmed the hearts of millions who balked at its madcap, cornball nature. The words to the jingle didn’t even make any sense—for example, “It doesn’t matter what comes, fresh goes better in life.” But they didn’t have to. The important part was the earworm tune set to visuals of people “solving problems” with “effortless” and nonsensical methods that would never work in real life.
Yet that was the thing about Mentos: it was an ad campaign that truly sparked millennials’ initial foray into “unreality.” A la-la land where they could delude themselves with ideas of happiness secured with no effort whatsoever. Or if there was at least some vague effort involved, it would automatically work on the first try. The non-Mentos universe, alas, would not provide such instant gratification to many a disappointed millennial. And though some might call it “peak millennial” to blame their woes on a commercial from their childhood, it’s not so. What would be peak is trying to sue the company for damages.
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