product instead of wasting time cultivating a new one. This pre-held awareness is a form of mental real estate. The Altoid example is significant not just because the brand was used (and yes it may be a case of product placement although one wonders if induced choking is a positive brand representation), but because of all of the other options that were not used but could have been (e.g. Certs, Tic Tac, Pez). Or, more simply put, Hollywood wants as many people as possible to get the joke and therefore one has to know what an Altoid is. This means that Hollywood, the market demographic theocracy, is confident that we all know what an Altoid is. Yet, less than a decade ago, this would not have been the case. By all accounts, the Altoid, like its siblings, should have sunk into obscurity.

Concocted sometime around the beginning of the 19th century, Altoids were originally marketed as a "stomach calmative." At that time, Altoids were part of a Smith & Company snake-oil family that included Zenoids, Cyphoids and Notoids, all of which claimed some dubious medicinal property. Originally packaged in cardboard, the mints did not become available in their characteristic tins until the 1920s (about the same time they entered the United States). Today, the "curiously strong" mint is still manufactured in Wales and is available in many countries. The US Federal Trade Commission estimates that Altoids control over 60 percent of the American candy mint market.

Altoids' more recent celebrity is a result of a curiously strong marketing campaign begun in 1995 following Kraft Food's purchase of the brand. Early advertising from this campaign featured a carnival muscleman and the text "Nice Altoids" – an ingeniously unique approach and a harbinger of what was to come. Later ads featured the copy "Dental Damn," "All the Fever Without the Virus," and the very in-joke "Get Medieval on Your Mouth." Several of the ads are so sarcastically abrasive they give the impression of being some fired copywriter's vengeful joke.

If the majority of the Altoids' marketing mix is what one might expect from a non-toxic Philip Morris appendage, the promotion utility certainly is not. The ads feature an odd, yet amusing blend of self-deprecation and conceited bullying. The result is the creation of a brand with a split personality, like a successful buddy-action flick with two mismatched yet thoroughly enjoyable protagonists. It is as if the brand doesn't take itself seriously enough to explain the fluke of its own popularity, deeming it better to have a laugh while it can before the lights go out.

The campaign's success is rooted in the maturing of Generation We-Don't-Care's sarcasm reflex. While nifty, the successful leveraging of cynical apathy for brand loyalty is fundamentally suicidal. The paradox is that, at some point and time, such a strategy will surrender to the law of diminishing returns. As Altoids becomes the standard-bearer for candy mints, its ads will become less "curious" and its image less hip, and it is possible that Altoids' original clientele will be left as even more cynical, dispossessed consumers. Indeed, there is a reason that the dowdy Kraft name is absent from the Altoids tin.

Kraft and its Callard & Bowser-Suchard unit seem to realize this and are stealthily taking more tried and true measures to cement Altoids in the mainstream, where brand life expectancy is higher. Recently, Altoids Sours, in a round tin, have been added to the family, which continues to expand and includes a range of flavors from cinnamon to ginger. Altoids has also launched television ad campaigns (in the US on cable stations Bravo, E! Entertainment and ex-ironic-now-iconic MTV). All the while, the competition is scrambling to market their own mints. Starbucks now sells intense mints and everyone from Nabisco to Pfizer has released similar products, many of them attempting to replicate or one-up the Altoids ads with little success.

However, one of Altoids' most prominent achievements is the introduction of the American palate to the extreme mint market. This sector includes chemically enhanced micro-chip-sized mints which pack almost unbearable, Chernobyl-like intensity. Long popular in Europe, brands such as Smint and Fresch are now just beginning to burn tongues in the States where disposable income and oral care obsession are a match made in heaven.

Abram D. Sauer is a writer currently living in New York. He was a columnist for The China Daily while living in Beijing and is co-founder of Chopstickfactory.com.