Annheuser-Busch and Cadbury Schweppes working aggressively to develop functional drinks. * Growing cynicism among the youth against big corporations and over-hyped products. * In 1999, Carbonated Soft Drinks sales suffered as a result of customer’s sticker shock to a category-wide 5% retail price increase. In the 1990s, Mountain Dew used musicians and celebrities in its advertisements but struggled to impact the consumers. * By 1998, PepsiCo managers were worried that the advertisements were becoming too predictable and also that the use of alternative sports was becoming less impactful due to oversaturation. * Mountain Dew had the highest ‘ gate-keeping’ ratings of all carbonated soft drinks. It was the drink that mothers tried the hardest to keep out of the stomachs of their children. * PepsiCo managers had yet to find a research method that was accurate enough to rely upon to provide definitive judgments on ad effectiveness.
Mountain Dew had much lower market penetration of the total population Evaluation of alternatives – To end the monotonus advertising campaign the company is evaluating the following advertisements in order to find start a new marketing campaign that will appeal the consumers. Folloeing are the pros and Cons of each Advertiesement. Dew or Die Plot: Dew Dudes powered by the spilt can of Mountain Dew save the world from evil villain who is threatening to blow the planet. In between they perform daredevil maneuvers down a mountain and get side-tracked in a ski lodge with some girls.
Psychographic Imagery: Pros: 1. Fit up the image of adventurous, wild, daring, courageous, free spirited, and youthful. 2. Express daring personality of Dew users. 3. Appeals young audience Cons: 1. Doesn’t speak about the quenching and taste benefits of Mountain Dew. Mock Opera Plot: Dew Dudes do the parody of Queen‘ s song Bohemian Rhapsody. The ads show the alternative sport action in which the athletes just misses the cans of Dew they shoot by. Psychographic Imagery: Pros: 1. Fit up with the sport connection of Dew 2. Humorous parody since the lyrics and album cover has been changed. . Fit with the ongoing Super Bowl events that is going to happen. 4. Generate universal appeal. Cons: 1. Daring part which is main factor in Dew’s ads is not highlighted. 2. Queen’s fans may find it offensive. 3. Not age specific ads. Labour of Love Plot: It is an advertisement that features the birth of a dew drinker. The doctor in the delivery room calls out code green and returns to catch the baby with a baseball mitt. The advertisement is indeed out of box idea. Psychographic Imagery: Pros: 1. The child is rebellious by birth. 2.
The use of baseball mitt shows the athleticism in the advertisement. 3. It has a wildness associated with it as the baby shoots out like a canon. 4. It will appeal the 21-40 group for the family angle attached to it. Cons: 1. It lacks adventure, wildness, excitement. 2. Baseball is a predominantly white game and won’t have the pan racial appeal. 3. It will fall short in appealing the teenagers as they can’t associate them with theme. Cheetah Plot: One of the dew dudes chases down a cheetah in an African plain in a mountain bike just because the cheetah stole the dew can.
Psychographic Imagery: Pros: 1. The cheetah and the bike chase is adventurous, wild, daring, courageous, youthful and athletic. 2. It doesn’t have racial discrimination attached to it 3. It will appeal the teenagers as well as the 21 to 40 age group. Cons: 1. The cheetah and the African jungle might have a racial sting attached to it which might have displeased the white population. 2. The ad won’t have appealed the people outside the teenage group and loyal drinkers of mountain dew of the age group of 21 to 40. Showstopper
Plot: The advertisement shows an improvisation on a typical Buzby Berkeley musical from 1930s to now include skateboarders as performers while the Dew dudes are directors i. e. Buzby Berkeley himself. Psychographic Imagery Pros: 1. The advert is a throwback to the old style of movie making and music mixed with adventure sports as the art being showcased. 2. Tries to tap the popularity of “ retro” among the youth to gain attention 3. The skateboarder angle maintains the sporty angle of the positioning 4. Garish/loud advertisement can garner attention. Cons: 1.
