The Mountain Dew brand had been a consistently significant success story within the Pepsico North America portfolio. In the late 90s, it was a cultural icon representing irreverent attitude and extreme lifestyle, resonating with a generation of teens. By 2000 the brand’s cultural saliency weakened as evolving consumer values and entrants like Red Bull diminished Dew’s relevance. Dew needed a rebirth.

We connected with a diverse group of leading cultural creators and tastemakers such as Shepard Fairey, LTD, Inked, PSFK, and theHappyCorp among others to understand how and why culture had changed, and how Dew could best gain back its relevance through a new cultural movement. We found an emerging youth culture whose experimental, trial-and-error ethos championed a wholly different way of interacting with the world. We championed this as “Beta Culture”.

Realizing “Beta Culture” was true for both the brand and Dew’s millennial consumer, we used Dew’s brand positioning of “Fueling the Core” as a solution to reach out to the Beta Spirit within consumers.

Our brand strategy originally directed all marketing communications and innovation for the brand and inspired Green Label Art, and the Dewmocracy Campaigns. Both platforms are active and profitable for Pepsico to this day.