The Road to the New Dew

Has Mountain Dew joined the ranks of CNN’s Ballot Bowl and MSNBC’s Race for the White House?

It’s hard not to get inundated, especially in our industry, with social media. Clients ask: how do you rate social media and viral marketing as successful? If it gets people talking about your brand, engages them in an interesting and relevant “with the times” manner, instigates action among a network of people, and in this case – got me to venture back into the land of unnaturally yellow drinks.

Yes, Mountain Dew. I used to love them; I am actually not sure why I haven’t had one in years. This time, they aren’t yellow, and I was persuaded by compelling TV commercials during election coverage. You know what? I DO want to take the Road to the New Dew.

While this site seems to have been around for a while already, no matter – it’s acceptable to stay undecided up to a point. Apparently Mountain Dew had its own Primary season, with interactive games for users to create the 3 final flavors (Flavor, Color, Name, Logo, Label) which somehow all ended up with gingseng in them. Now is decision making time… I am sure we are all a little OD’ed on politics, so why not take a break and campaign for a new energy drink (we all need them and love them). And rest assured, a 3rd party isn’t going to screw things up for the rest of us.

Things I like:
Witty campaign news ticker, state-by-state results, campaign count-down clock.
You can create an video without too much effort – just pick & arrange the elements.

Things I don’t like:
You have to have the MyHtml app on facebook to post campaign posters.

All three flavors are available this summer in case you want to become familiar with the issues before committing. I guess the worst outcome would be that the winner just tastes bad, no matter how cool the campaign was. I am supporting Voltage on flavor alone until I can make it downstairs to the 7-11 (Plus, the logo looks like the Las Vegas sign).

Last but not least, please click on my campaign poster to check out the dewmocracy.com site (and help me become a Recruiter of the Week)!