Over the last several decades, there have been just a handful of companies that have succeed at using sports as a vehicle to create an awareness amongst consumers that transcends basic brand recognition and enters the realm of a deeply rooted association with a particular lifestyle. One of the most successful examples is that presented by Mountain Dew, a division of PepsiCo PEP -0.1%, which has concentrated its sports marketing and sponsorship strategy on achieving a single goal – making the brand synonymous with the extreme.
Mountain Dew, a brand with 75 years of history, has long been known as an outlier in the carbonated soft drink market. One of the first soda’s to eschew the usage of coca extract as an ingredient in favor of a citrus flavor, the brand has always embraced its ‘radical’ identity by focusing its sponsorship strategy on sports and entertainment properties that lay on the fringes of both worlds. More significantly, the company has gone out of its way to both create and own their own experiential properties in order to insure that it maximizes the authenticity of its branding.
Entering its 10th year, the Dew Tour, a showcase of action sports ranging from BMX biking to snowboarding, has become helped Mountain Dew firmly cement its name as the drink of choice for non-traditional athletes around the globe. While the event makes stops around the country, and is broadcast live by NBC in several locations, its highlight is the Dew Tour Mountain Championships, held in Breckenridge, Colorado. A four-day extravaganza of all things extreme, the competition brings together the world’s premier international snowboard and free-ski athletes. In fact, this year’s event reunites the top winter athletes from the Sochi Olympics, including eight gold medalists.
“Action sports have been at the core of Mountain Dew’s brand heritage for decades,” said Greg Lyons, Vice President of Marketing, Mountain Dew. “In addition to providing a highly engaging consumer experience between the brand and some of our most loyal fans, the development of Dew Tour a decade ago has helped drive the progression of action sports through creativity and community, and has become a signature event that we are extremely proud of.”
Unlike other consumer package goods companies, who often piggy back on existing platforms to get their marketing message across, Mountain Dew has sought to control all aspects of the their target audiences experience with the brand. The latter form of marketing may help create brand awareness, but it becomes predicated on the platform (i.e. football) triggering the association (i.e. beer). The issue thus becomes, 1) that the brand benefiting form such an association is dependent on a variable outside its control (consumer has to watch football) and, 2) that the association is tenuous at best (any beer might due). On the other hand, companies like Mountain Dew have been able to flip the equation with their unique approach to anchoring consumer behavior through sponsorship. Just like eating crackerjacks reminds us of baseball, drinking Mountain Dew triggers an association with action sports (fast, exciting, extereme). While Mountain Dew has no expectations that the average consumer will suddenly be compelled to go snowboarding by drinking a can of soda, having a deeply rooted association with pleasant and enjoyable feelings an incredibly powerful tool that helps drive consumer behavior.
Of course, the residual benefits of sponsoring such events are also substantial. By supporting communities through the financing of events and prize money, as Mountain Dew has done both in the world of action sports and video games, the brand has created loyalty with the members of those tribes that no amount of traditional marketing could ever do. Instead of spending millions of dollars attempting to convince consumers to purchase their product, through its authentic and genuine approach, Mountain Dew has been able to get those very individuals to convince themselves that the brand is simply an extension of who they already are.
Mountain Dew’s approach to sponsorship serves as an excellent case study for companies seeking to create an identity with consumers that transcends traditional notions of brand awareness and enters the realm of the achievement of self-actualization and the pursuit of happiness.
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