Over these last few years, and even more since the pandemic and the lockdown, tension has risen among the French youth, and youth culture has gone increasingly agressive. Today, to stay popular when you're young, you have to act like a bully, be a good trash talker. The consequences can be fatal: social shaming, outcasting or worse: over the last two months, France has experienced three deadly fights among teenagers.

Mentos stands for freshness and light-heartedness. To get French teens to take a step back and relax, Mentos hacked the traditional codes of rap culture, and chose to celebrate a rap style that does the opposite of trash talking. Mentos presents: FRESH TALK, a world where rap battles are settled with hard-hitting compliments and positive punchlines. 

We chose to use rap because it’s the culture that teens breathe, of course. But also because it’s a culture where trash talking is the norm. In 2019, a fight at the Paris airport between two French rap celebrities, Booba and Kaaris, made the headlines and brought the topic on the table. The French youth was ripe for our proposition.

We started by setting the example ourselves, producing a track and a music video with two emerging rap artists, Keyzane and PMC. We launched the track on social networks and streaming platforms. We teamed up with the #1 hip-hop radio in France, creating a web radio dedicated to Fresh Talk. Shows were hosted by the iconic presenter of “Planete Rap”, with live battles where rap artists fought each other with positive punchlines. So that everyone could join in, even the shyest teens, we created a Positive Punchline Generator in collaboration with the digital media Konbini. 

The campaign reached 5.3 million people, with a total of 32 million impressions. Our track was streamed more than 100,000 times on streaming platforms. Our Fresh Talk web radio registered 1.3 million listening sessions. 44,000 punchlines were emitted on our Positive Punchline Generator. Brand mentions on the internet have doubled, and increased by 421% on Instagram. The positive brand sentiment increased by 168%.