So it's a Saturday afternoon, I'm on the internet, and I just complete the Dark Brotherhood quests in Skyrim, life is good. I decided after too much video game playing to sit down and peruse the internet looking for some nice advertisements. Then I got distracted and after a series of clicks, I found this:
(Go ahead and click this, I'll be here when you get back)
Back? Sweet! Wasn't that extreme? Didn't it conjure images of awesomeness --like dirtbikes, extreme sports, and Halo!? You bet your ass it did! Mt. Dew has been, without a doubt, the most extreme drink ever, or at the very least that's how Pepsi.co has positioned its brand since I can remember first consuming its sugary goodness when I was a kid. Mt. Dew however has taken to a whole new campaign, trying to go further than viral... they're trying to become a meme on websites such as reddit.com and tumblr.
Take a look at a post on r/trees two weeks ago. For those of you readers (that definitely don't exist) that aren't familiar with reddit that's a marijuana related forum, just in case you missed the pot leaves at the top. This post recieved 1179 link karma, out of roughly 7,000 people who had voted on it (58% who voted it up) which meant this was on the front page of anyone who subscribed to r/trees which is also on the front page of reddits vanilla settings.That means a ton of people were looking at this the day it was posted. Many people, like myself, log onto reddit a couple of times a day without going into our accounts, and we may have seen this advertisement three or four times, just idly scrolling by. On top of that, reddit forces me to actively remember what it is I clicking because their users try craft clever names to attract th most attention. "So I just bought this domain," makes me look at the domain link, or recall what it is I clicked, thus hitting me twice as hard if I happen to be looking at the front page for the umpteenth time due to boredom on a Saturday evening. This is how blogs get born.
So I searched for "fuckyeahmountaindew" online, which led me to their tumblr account. I'm not sure if it is, but I assume its owned by the same person(s). I could be wrong, but I'm a blogger... not a journalist. Go and fact check for me if you wish.
It's nothing too special, just some pictures of Mountain Dew taken with instagram, and an attempt to appeal to college kids who have dry erase board on their dorm room doors. Actually, after looking at it more, it really is all towards college aged kids. Aren't I an Einstein!
Also, they have an image on quickmeme, just adding to my conspiracy theory that Mt. Dew is attempting to take over the minds of young adults via catchy online marketing memery.
Meme used to not mean what it does now. It has two definitions as far as I'm concerned, but for the sake of this discussion we are going to use 4chan/reddits (aka: the internet) definition: stupid inside jokes that you will only get if you spend a lot of time on these particular websites. They pop up on your hipster/nerdy/stoner friends wall all of the time. I would know all about these because I fall into this demographic.
Pepsi.co is smart. I hate to say it, but we as consumers are not as smart as we think we are. We are easily susceptible to things that are presented to us in our language, our way of communicating. The Pepsi and Mt. Dew commercials you would see in the 90's were all "Generation Next!" and "GRRRAWWWW EXTREME SPORTS" or something, and showed people. People were hanging out and doing normal things people do everyday like break dancing in back alleys, or jumping out of airplanes. The older generations didn't have porn, videogames, and facebook at their fingertips like we do now. I don't have to leave my house to socialize or entertain myself; instead I can write down my thoughts, talk to my girlfriend, look at funny shit all night, and give shouts to my friends over the internet! So naturally I spend more time alone now than I would have if I were a 25 year old in 1992.
So now Pepsi.co expects me to be happy with a catchy guitar riff, a single picture of Mt. Dew, and an irreverent web address! And they should expect that, because that's who their trying to attract through this style of advertising, nerdy folk like me.
They're doing a good job, I'm just wondering if they paid people to click upvotes all day on reddit or if it was totally organic. Now I'm going to go down to the corner store and get me some Diet Pepsi. That stuff is nectar to me.
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