Mountain Dew Case

Case Study: Mountain Dew

• Evaluated Mountain Dew's situation in 1999.

In 1990s The CSD market had pulled back the cola growth and opened up the market for “flavor” CSD. Pepsico during this time had picked up a major share of the CSD category by leveraging on the new rage of carbonated drink “Mountain Dew”- that came with a refreshing strong citrus flavour. Though the market penetration of mountain dew was not as high as the other successful flavor CSD, it was successful in creating the most loyal consumer base in the market. The success of Mountain Dew was in the strategic positioning of the product, targeting youth of 18 years and above, appealing mostly the age group upto 39 years. The marketing of the product had been to symbolise the product benefit of energising, thirst- quenching attributes that had an emotional attention being drawn to feelings associated with exhilaration and excitement, attracting youth who are daring, irreverent with fun loving personalities. The market penetration of this product is attributed to “the Do the Dew Campaign” that was launched in 1992. Each creative in the campaign enabled to capture consumers’ flagging interest in terms of the positioning strategy. The first break through ad “Done that” featured ‘dew dude’ commenting on a hair raising shot of a jumping off the edge of a cliff to take a free fall towards narrow Canyons river bottom, set with throbbing grunging music. Thereafter all the ads launched for promoting Mountain dew had some association with stunts, adventure and excitement element by way of featuring James bond, Andre Agassi, Jackie Chan etc in their ads. Mountain Dew extensively featured alternative sports in its ad and combined it with the punked music. By way of each of its ad, “Mountain Dew” associated its name as a brand symbolising the youth and their lifestyle. However, by the late 1990s the advertisement pattern of Mountain dew was feared to be predictable as most other lifestyle brand started using alternative sports in their ads, making it less impactful due to over saturation. To keep the campaign fresh the necessity of the hour was to find alternative ways to express Mountain Dew’s distinctive features.

• What is your recommendation to Scott Moffit? Which advertising creative he should consider? Why?

The Do the Dew campaign witnessed a huge success in promoting Mountain Dew as a drink for the youth throughout the 1990s. Each and every ad of the campaign symbolized the drink to impart exhilarating experience to its consumers who could associate it with energy, fun and adventure. However, by late 1990s the concept of having the epicentre of the ads at the alternative sports started depleting the distinctiveness of its product as many other lifestyle brands started adopting similar strategies to attract customers.