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by Interest in Mentos and Diet Coke has exploded over the past year. Chances are you have probably seen the Mentos and Diet Coke videos on YouTube or Google Video. When a roll of Mentos is dropped into a 2 liter of soda it forms an instant geyser--sometimes as high as 20 feet. What started as a backyard experiment has spread through viral video and recently received significant media coverage from a variety of outlets including NPR, the Today Show, and Letterman. This week, MythBusters set out to understand the science behind the explosion.
As explained by the Mythbusters, Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman, "Basically the Mentos start to dissolve, and it's like tripping a switch...it's a cascade whereon all of a sudden, all of the CO2 that was contained in the liquid is suddenly not as attracted to the liquid as it was before, because of this slight change in the chemistry that occurs." At rest, the carbon dioxide molecules in the soda are held together by water molecules. The Mentos have tiny pits, or nucleation sites, that provide locations for the carbon dioxide molecules to form. In addition, the gelatin and gum aribic in the Mentos breaks the surface tension making it easier for bubbles to form. Although Mentos has the spotlight, it appears salt may do the trick as well. According to Hyneman, "Plain old table salt is better." Richard Zare from Stanford agrees.
Mentos hopes this cheap alternative doesn't catch on. They estimate the advertising value of this craze has already topped $10 million dollars. Much of this has been driven by eepybird.com. Eepybird's video, which features 200 liters of Diet Coke and 500 Mentos, has been downloaded over 6 million times. To keep the craze alive, Mentos just announced a contest for the best geyser judged on creativity/uniqueness (50%), execution (25%), and production quality (25%). The winner walks away with 1,000 iTunes and a year's supply of Mentos. Coke, on the other hand, discounts the free publicity, "we would hope people want to drink [Diet Coke] more than try experiments with it."
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The Business Side of Mentos and Diet Coke
Looking at the business side of all this, how do you think this will pay off for Mentos? By their own estimation, the Diet Coke/Mentos video craze has already brought them over $10 million in free advertising. Does their direct involvement in the phenomena somehow take the fun out of it?
From the Mentos Official Rules:
Eligible entries will be judged by a qualified panel of judges based on three criteria:
- creativity/uniqueness of idea (50%);
- quality of execution (25%); and
- production quality, writing, and acting (25%).
Would Mentos be better served by having YouTube members vote on the videos? Or maybe setting up another voting system to get everyone involved. If they did, they have the advantage of each contestant promoting their video--telling family and friends and blogging about it. Sure they run a risk that the most popular instead video may win instead of the highest quality video. Or that the voting process could be corrupted, but in my opinion it would be worth the risk. If the winning video is not the best video then it will be protested in blogs and perhaps the media. Controversy generates more free publicity for Mentos. Mentos avoids direct blame because the viewers decided and it was out of their hands. That could even spark a second contest.
This is a very inexpensive contest for Mentos anyway. All the videos are hosted on YouTube. That is a smart move. It generates free publicity and saves them bandwidth costs. The total value of all the prizes is less than $2,000. Every person who does enter gets a free Mentos cap, towel, or t-shirt. That's a bonus. Who can turn down a free t-shirt?
Mentos is not the only one making money off this craze. Fritz Grobe and Stephen Voltz, the two guys who created the eepybird video, have reportedly made over $30,000 in ad revenue.
The Mentos experiments will work with just about any soda. There are some advantages with Diet Coke that make it the beverage of choice. Since it is diet, the soda is not sticky. The caffeine, potassium benzoate, aspartame, & CO2 gas in the Diet Coke also all play a role. Although Mentos requires videos to contain "any regular flavor Mentos" you can use "a plastic bottle of a carbonated beverage of any brand." Will Diet Coke disappear from the videos? Will their dismissive, "we would hope people want to drink [Diet Coke] more than try experiments with it" backfire on them or is it a smart move to protect the brand?
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Mentos+Coke= Explosives by Eye.Of.Sage :: NR6 :: Show
Wait, so something in the mentos combines with the coke right? Could you explain what chemicals exactly in the mentos that caused this? I'm just curious.