We can’t help you. But we can give you Mentos.
How do you bring back one of the most iconic jingles of the ’90s without feeling like a retro cash grab? You don’t. You make it weird. You make it modern. And you make it sing.
To mark 35 years of “The Freshmaker,” Mentos and Highdive teamed up with Tool director Hannah Levy and musician-creator Carter Vail to reimagine the campaign for a TikTok-native audience. The result? A chaotic medley of painfully relatable dilemmas, offbeat visuals, and musical comedy that feels right at home on Gen Z’s For You page.
The Formula
Each of the nine original shorts pairs Carter’s updated jingles with a specific modern dilemma—think: texting your ex, dodging your mom during a steamy movie, or discovering your roommate is a 3AM trombone enthusiast. The format stays simple: VHS-style cold opens, Carter crooning from the sidelines, and visual gags stitched together from stock, AI, and handcrafted graphics.
The Tone
At the heart of the campaign is a simple truth: life is full of little humiliations, and no amount of fresh breath is going to fix them. From reconciling with your ex’s new boyfriend to realizing your date holds a spoon like a caveman, each scenario is painfully familiar. By tapping into those awkward, universally shared moments and delivering them with musical flair, Mentos connects with a generation fluent in self-deprecation, irony, and TikTok oversharing.
The Shoot
Hannah directed Carter during a 1 day shoot on a stage in Hollywood. Shooting against a green screen, we leveraged practical props and the remaining background visuals were comped in. Carter was a pro and kept us laughing at his renditions of each jingle.
Creating Background Images Using AI
To punctuate Carter’s performance and the comedic beats in each jingle, Tool’s AI team created custom AI visuals. Rather than going the stock image route, this gave the creative team more creative freedom to dream up visuals that were a perfect match for the beats in the jingles. Our lead AI artist Lewis would create a range of images for each visual moment, the creative team at High Dive would review with Hannah and tweak accordingly. Once there was an image select, we’d submit to the editorial team at High Dive and in some cases, the vfx team at Jogger would add graphics and do light compositing.
Conclusions
The campaign was about platform fluency. Built specifically for TikTok, every jingle was designed to loop, share, and get stuck in your head for way too long. Carter’s voice and comedic sensibility gave the series a lived-in weirdness that felt native to Gen Z humor, while Hannah Levy’s direction grounded the absurdity in sharp comedic timing and visual consistency across all nine spots.
