Mentos Gum wants some fresh ideas

June 8, 2009 by Jonathan Paul

Mentos Gum recently held ‘mo-mentos’ events in Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver, calling on passersby to do something downright dirty during their lunch hour: dress up in white jumpsuits, get on large bouncy balls covered in paint and bounce around a 75-foot-long canvas with some mood music in the background to spur them on. It was all to help buoyant city dwellers bring a bit of happiness into their lives during these troubling times, as well as to launch six new flavours of Mentos Gum.

After people had bounced to their heart’s content, the resulting work of stencil art revealed a new website for the brand, Makeyourworldgorounder.ca, kicking off a contest challenging Canadians to come up with ideas to that effect, which they can submit until July 5.

Cossette Media in Montreal developed the campaign. ‘We wanted to do a stunt and give people an example of how they can make their world go rounder,’ explains Sylvain Lemieux, VP, strategies and products at Cossette PR arm Blitz.

A panel of judges will select two ideas that Mentos will make happen over the summer and the winners will also receive $5,000.

In an interesting media move, the events in each city were also ‘covered’ in local editions of free commuter daily Metro, with a front page ad that was designed to look like news, giving commuters something a little different to chew on.