• by Karl Greenberg , February 12, 2015

XO Mints is a niche brand, but Los Angeles-based RPA is hoping to bring the brand to the fore on Valentine’s Day, with a humorous video, and social campaign, “Ballad for Ugly People,” around Joshua Beeman’s “The Ugly Couple Song.” The video pairs the brand, whose tag is “The Flirtatious Mint,” with folk-rock band Run River North, whose rendition of the song forms the thematic track and narrative for the video.

The film, for which L.A.-based Cut+Run handled editorial duties, features three guys you’d expect to see in “Flight of the Conchords” or “The Office.” While the song plays, they lip-synch the lyrics about awkwardness, dandruff, acne, pubescent eccentricities, nerdiness, and love of comics. The song is on xomints.com and the campaign urges people to share images of “love and beauty” that challenge stereotypes, using the hashtag #SomethingBeautiful. The brand is also promoting the video on its Facebook and Twitter pages.

The mints have earned something of a swag-bag niche: they were in Grammys artist gift bags, and in Grammys talent lounge and celebrity dressing rooms. They will also be in Oscar talent gift bags.

As for Valentine’s Day, whether mints, chocolates, flowers, or diamonds, Millennials will be at cash registers, per a study by eGifter, part of its Trends in Digital Gifting research based on a survey of 1,200 consumers. It finds that 45% of Americans aged 18-25 are likely to spend on Valentine’s Day gifts, versus 38% of all consumers.

People living in major cities are most likely to purchase gifts on Valentine’s Day, versus rural areas consumers, it says. Also, across all holidays, group gifting is increasing, with over half of consumers the firm polled saying they will do a group gift in the next year, up from 48% in the past year. 

And nearly 20% of consumers say social media reminders, such as Facebook birthday notifications, provide a nudge for gift shopping, with over half of those people saying social notifications influenced a decision to gift someone they weren’t originally planning to. Sixty-four percent of consumers purchased “just because” gifts in the past year.

Consumer perception of gift cards is also changing. The study says that gift cars, once perceived by consumers as an unsentimental and generic proxy for cash, the majority of consumers — 63% — now prefer gift cards, making them the most popular gift this year. Along those lines, about 40% of consumers said they would scan plastic gift cards into a mobile wallet, and 39% of consumers said they believe a gift card would feel more personalized if the giver included a link to an item in store they thought the receiver would like.

Tyler Roye, CEO and founder of eGifter, said retailers are missing the boat on “just because” purchases, partly because they aren’t using digital and social media to drive sales. “Only a limited percentage currently capitalizing on this trend,” he said, in a statement.