Mountain Dew

Mountain Dew: Selecting New Creative

Introduction

“Do the Dew!” This was a long time tag line for the Mountain Dew brand. In 1995 marketing managers for Mountain Dew realized the tag line had lost consumer interests, understanding this they changed the direction of the creative. Though the creative changed, the target market for Mountain Dew remained in line. Mountain Dew’s ad campaign between 1995 and 1999 did not fare extremely well. PepsiCo decided that in 2000 Mountain Dew would be featured during the Super Bowl rather than Pepsi. This was an enormous feat, as the Super Bowl had been an influential event for advertisers for decades. It was already October 1999 for the marketing executives and decisions had to be made to get the production started. Only three advertisements were going to be chosen, two to be played during the Super Bowl and all three throughout the year 2000. There were ten initial concepts proposed and five remained. Scott Moffit, the Marketing Director for Mountain Dew, was the least senior executive and first to evaluate the concepts. This essay will clarify the problems leering Mountain Dew, give several strategic alternatives, alternative recommendations, and a rationale point of the alternative chosen.

Statement of the Problem

Mountain Dew’s current marketing strategy, “Do the Dew,” has become stagnant. A new marketing concept must be developed to rejuvenate consumer appeal towards Mountain Dew. Mountain Dew has a chance to be featured during the Super Bowl in two advertisements with only 3 to 4 months to do so.

Alternatives

Alternative One

With not even four months before the advertisement debut, Mountain Dew could opt out of the Super Bowl advertisement feature. The benefits of this alternative would be that the advertisement would not be rushed into production. Moffit and the other executives would not be pressured into selecting concepts that were “sub-par.” The downside of not accepting the feature during the Super Bowl would be that they would miss an optimal opportunity to portray their product across millions of television sets.

Alternative Two

Mountain Dew has heavy time constraints to produce two advertisements for the Super Bowl. One option could be to suggest to PepsiCo to only produce one advertisement by Mountain Dew, trying to reach a different market segment, and fill the other Super Bowl feature with Pepsi. Mountain Dew’s marketing executives realized the stagnant position the “Do the Dew” tagline reached and will see the same stagnant position with the “Dew Dudes.” They should seek to venture towards a new market segment. With the time constraint lessened Mountain Dew can then send the BBDO associates back to the drawing table, if necessary, to rethink new concepts. The executives will then be able to select two other advertisements to be produced at a later time and present them throughout 2000.

This again has several advantages and disadvantages to it. The benefit to do this is that it would diffuse the time constraint placed on Mountain Dew. It would also allow them to produce a higher quality advertisement. Mountain Dew would also be able to “feel out” how other market segments perceive Mountain Dew and the likelihood that they will be able to breach the segment. The down fall, again, would be giving up one of the most prolific advertisement spots on television. The concept to choose for this alternative would be the Labor of Love concept. This is the only concept not containing the “Dew Dudes” and the most relative to many people. Everyone has been birthed and therefore understands the concept of