Success Stories

Points of difference to drive growth

Mentos has been available in Australia for over two decades. Up until a few years ago, prior to the acquisition of the Van Melle company by Perfetti, Mentos was best known for its chewy mint variant and tagline ‘The Freshmaker’, appealing to the older functional/breath-freshening segment. Since 2006, the brand has successfully grown its appeal to a more youthful market seeking candies for enjoyment, stimulation or escape. This has been achieved through youthful marketing strategies, an extended range of everyday flavours and exciting short-term promotional flavour offerings. Different pack types have also been introduced to appeal to different consumers and channels, from multi-stick packs for grocery, individually wrapped candies for foodservice, pop-top convenience packs to mini-rolls for children and family consumption bags.

Between 2005 and 2011, Mentos has seen sales value increase by more than 40%.

Value of strong relationships

Our strong relationships with and understanding of key retailers provides opportunities to negotiate exclusive deals from rotating the range of regular and seasonal flavours to running limited edition rolls for specific retailers. An example of this was the ‘Green and Gold’ Mentos roll launched in time for the 2011 FIFA World Cup.

Direct negotiation and innovative execution

Our innovative and tactical point of sale solutions and the ability of our field teams to leverage their relationships at a store level to negotiate unique visibility opportunities, often at no additional charge, drive sales in both grocery and impulse channels.

Outdoor campaigns

In 2010-2011, two successful campaigns were run to drive new flavour launches – Fresh Cola and Rainbow (the seven bestselling fruit flavours in one roll). With a limited media budget, outdoor advertising proved an effective medium to communicate to Mentos’ core target demographic - teens and young adults – who are always on the move. The medium also facilitated the use of large scale, eye-catching creative developed locally that directly impacted scan sale performance.

First for brand

Between September and December 2011, a typically slow period for the category, Mentos ran its first ever on pack promotion with a prize pool of $125,000 including instant cash prizes. With over 10 million packs, the promotion ran across core single roll and multi roll ranges covering all accounts but with a particular focus on the impulse channel. The promotion generated off-location displays, increased promotional return and overall improved visibility, trial and awareness for the brand resulting in over 313,000 entries into the promotion.