Emvies 2007: In rural areas, just Dew it

Launched in 2003, cold drink Mountain Dew has, through its rather ‘daring’ adverts, managed to build a reputation for itself as an adventurous, bold brand over time. At the Emvies 2007 case study presentation round, MindShare spoke about its work for Mountain Dew (entered in the category Best Media Innovation: Events), indicating that all is not hunky-dory for the brand.

For one, it is learnt that Mountain Dew thrives on high loyalty but only from the metros. This loyalty base needed to be expanded to the vast, untapped rural markets – a tough job for an urban drink. It was important to generate trials while keeping alive the brand values of rush, exhilaration and adventure.

Hence, MindShare came up with the concept of executing the ‘Dew Dares’ events, which had rural India participating in semi-dangerous, fun-filled activities such as rope-climbing, at the ‘Dew’ camps. This was done in order to give them the brand experience, and a chance to do what they would normally be content with simply watching. Needless to say, Mountain Dew was sold at these events.

Further, there was a tie-up with publications such as ‘Lokmat’, ‘The Telegraph’, ‘Dainik Bhaskar’, and ‘Dainik Jagran’, as print reach is high in the targeted areas. Print posed the opportunity of mass coverage, apart from equipping readers with discount coupons redeemable at the event. The three-month activity was conducted in 16 states, across 1067 locations in 347 towns.

As a result, there were 500,000 paid trials in the country, with a bottle of the drink being sold every minute. This resulted in a 50 per cent sustained volume growth for the brand, as well as a 50 per cent increase in imagery scores in the targeted markets.