Mtn Dew reintroduces itself behind a tough talking, fur-coat wearing ‘Mountain Dude’

Mtn Dew is getting off its ass. A new U.S.-only campaign is intended to reawaken dormant characteristics of the PepsiCo soda brand, including mountain and outdoor iconography, while delivering a long-gone message about how the drink tastes. It is pulled off behind daring creative—a new character, Mountain Dude, commands users to “get off their ass”—and signals a “new direction for ‘Do the Dew’,” the 30-year-old tagline for Mtn Dew, according to JP Bittencourt, VP of marketing. The effort comes as the brand fights to get out of a rut that saw volume decline by 9.7% in 2023, according to Beverage Digest figures. The creative Two new TV ads from Goodby Silverstein & Partners feature a flamboyant but tough-talking outdoorsy type known as the Mountain Dude. Wearing a 1970s ensemble of dark sunglasses, a medallion, and a green fur coat, he breaks in on young people shown indoors, staring at phones or virtual reality devices, and seated (or lying) on the backs of donkeys. “On the mountain we got a saying: ‘Get off your ass,’” the Dude says. Mtn Dew drinks then transport them to a lush mountain valley where a crowd is shown playing kickball with snow monsters, or in another ad, playing football with rams. Bittencourt said the brand is not deliberately courting controversy with the “get off your ass” line, saying it was an efficient way to express the “kick” the brand wanted to impart, while walking a fine line between possible interpretations. “I think you have to be delicate in terms of how it comes off, and the donkeys are a great mechanic for that,” he said. “I think in a very quick and pithy way, consumers get the read fast. They also don’t take it too seriously because you don’t want it to come off as judgemental. You don’t want to be overly humorous or slapsticky, but you also don’t want to be judgy.” See America's Hottest Brands 20 brands that are trending in 2024 Click here The insight At least since it was officially renamed Mtn Dew in 2008, the brand has moved away from legacy icons such as the mountain and crowds of people enjoying themselves outdoors, which are reawakened in the new work. “One of the things that we know about Dew from a legacy perspective is just we had this untapped potential in terms of mountain iconography and being outdoors,” Bittencourt said. “If you go back 30-plus years and you look at a lot of the equity work that was done back then, there was people coming together, having a refreshing time outside. And you know, that doesn't change. Consumers may ebb and flow, but there are some key equities in a brand that can be timeless. For us, it was just about uncovering them.” The new ads also include cues about taste and refreshment, product attributes that may be well-known by current users but a mystery to younger consumers coming of age with more beverage choices than ever before. This is carried out through “audio mnemonics” imparting the citrus taste and refreshing characteristics of the liquid, and are sprinkled throughout creative touchpoints, Bittencourt said. “New consumers don’t know how Mtn Dew tastes,” he said. “It’s very easy to take attributes of your product for granted, and when you’re dealing with a flavored soda, anchored in this sort of Dew-ness, if you will, if you’re a new consumer coming into the tribe, you don’t really know what it is.” Media strategy The new ads will run on linear, digital and social channels in 6-, 15- and 30-second cuts “but what we’re really excited about is the ability to just have a lot of fun with personalization at scale, being able to customize a lot of these assets in bite-size deployments across the digital landscape,” Bittencourt said. “There’s going to be a big-stage, high-reach media plan but there’s also [activations] complementary to it.” The personalized ads are meant to reinforce the message of the campaign in the moment, Bittencourt said. “If you know somebody’s going to be at home, Friday night, doom scrolling, they might get a certain ad that kind of sparks an invitation to go out to do something. That’s the type of personalization we’re looking at.” Check out the latest Ad Age events and award programs Business climate A combination of factors has negatively affected Mtn Dew sales in recent years, but better news could be on the way. In a conference call discussing the company’s quarterly results last week, PepsiCo CEO Ramon Laguarta made a point to single out the brand, saying “Mtn Dew is … back to growth,” although he did not specify volume or dollar growth, or the time frame of the performance. Making the Baja Blast variety a permanent part of the Mtn Dew portfolio and not a limited-time offering at Taco Bell has been a key contributor, Laguarta said. The retail launch of Baja Blast was promoted in a Super Bowl ad in February. Duane Stanford, editor and publisher of Beverage Digest, said economic pressures including grocery price inflation have contributed to soft sales, particularly in popular Mtn Dew markets in the Midwest and South. Consumer lifestyle changes like cutting back on sugar have also taken a toll, he said. In response, the brand has tried to broaden its audience, targeting Hispanic and young consumers who tend to be fans of flavored sods. “They’ve been challenged getting that core audience to consume more of the product and so they’ve had to find new audiences, and that’s just been a process,” Stanford said.

Mtn Dew reintroduces itself behind a tough talking, fur-coat wearing ‘Mountain Dude’

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