“When you look at a brand like Mountain Dew, and actually many of our brands, we absolutely used to have a focus on creating iconic TV advertising. That was how the marketing model worked. Right now when you look at what the brand needs going forward, that’s just not going to do it. That’s not going to be able to break through. So we are completely changing our approach,” observes Lauren Hobart, chief marketing officer for Sparkling Beverages at PepsiCo, Inc. Pepsi’s new model is to apply an integrated marketing communications (IMC) approach that utilizes traditional promotion tools and new social media to engage consumers. Mountain Dew has based its extraordinarily successful “Dewmocracy” campaigns on this new model. “No longer is it OK to just stand and talk to your consumers one way,” observes Hobart.

Questions
1. What changes in the environment provided the opportunity for the Dewmocracy approach?
2. Which of the promotional elements described in Figure were used by Mountain Dew in its Dewmocracy 2 campaign?
3. What are some of the different ways Mountain Dew can assess the success of its campaign?