Mentos Freshens Up Expressions with ‘Ementicons’

Mentos, the confectionery brand owned by Perfetti Van Melle, is freshening up the emoticon landscape by launching a range of fun ‘ementicons’ that aim to create relevant engagement with the brand’s socially savvy audience. 

Created by BBH London and illustrated by Genevieve Gauckler, each ementicon is an observation on social behaviour, representing the feelings you've never had the symbols to express. The range includes ementicons such as Cute-Crazed, for the feeling you get when something is just so cute you feel an almost aggressive compulsion to just squeeze it, and Bad Happy, for how you feel when you feel happy about something that you really shouldn’t be happy about, but you just can’t help it.  

To launch ementicons Mentos has secured the first ever brand partnership with Ultratext, the messaging app that allows users to create colourful animated GIF messages, which will see ementicons added to the Ultratext keyboard. 

The ementicons iOS 8 keyboard app, built by Monterosa, is also available to download for all iPhone users. A series of humourous ementicon e-cards will be housed on the ementicons.com microsite for people to download, email or share with their friends on social media. 

The campaign is supported by online advertising and 6 comical online films, directed by Matthew Pollock, which will be housed on YouTube and shared on Mentos’ social platforms, reaching over 12 million users. 

Shelley Smoler and Raphael Basckin, Creative Directors at BBH London, commented: “Instead of talking at our fans, we wanted to improve a way in which they could talk to each other. People of all languages use emoticons to convey emotions in text messages, but the standard ones are pretty outdated :( The Mentos brand is all about freshness. Our fresh take on emoticons was to leave smileys behind and design a set of symbols, using the iconic mentos dragee, to represent the real emotions of life in 2015.”

Daan Simonis at Mentos said: “With this campaign we’re aiming to create a deeper connection with our digital savvy audience, by providing a branded story that’s both fresh and entertaining because it’s relevant and useful for our audience.”