The global brand strapline for Mountain Dew is ‘Do the Dew’: a philosophy, an attitude and approach to life. It says “get out there, do what you love, push the boundaries, do something mental and give it everything”. But the target audience – young kiwi guys - didn’t find the American TVCs that communicated this philosophy authentic and they refused to participate with the brand.
The way forward become obvious:
- Give young guys an experience that allowed them to truly ‘take their passion to the next level’
- Make it digitally sharable, majorly participatory and something that allowed self-expression
And that’s when graffiti came to mind.
Every street artist on the planet aspires to getting their tag, their art, somewhere where people will look at it and say “how on earth did he get it there?” So, running with this insight and help from world-renowned street artist Haser, a team of ‘tech heads’ and Mountain Dew came up with an idea to enable people to get their work out there into the world - really out there.
First, Haser and his team were documented as they used motion-capture technology to bring their graffiti to life, literally turning a killer tag into a killer 2m x 2m piece of art (which was used to ‘art-bomb’ a central city alleyway). The entire process from concept, to creation, to alleyway art-bomb was captured and used as the basis of the creative content.
The technology was recreated online so fans could create their own 3D street art which could then be dropped anywhere in the world (using Google Street View), shared with their friends on Facebook, and showcased in an online gallery. This was where the audience spent their time - one-upping their mates, stealing the best spots for themselves and making themselves famous. The 3D tags could be seen in all sorts of places around the world.
Website visitation increased by 3462%, with 23,000 new fans and $200,000 worth of free publicity generated. In a rapidly declining market the increased level of engagement resulted in 28% growth for Mountain Dew.