A. Case Introduction 1.

Understanding the Business Non alcoholic market can be divided into soft drink and fruit juice. Some common soft drinks are flavoured water, sweet tea, iced tea, squash, fruit punch and lemonade. Non-carbonated and carbonated is further part of soft drink. The retail carbonated soft drinks (CSD) category had long been dominated by Coke and Pepsi. By 1990s, thress companies controlled all of the major national brands: The Coca Cola Company (Coke, Diet Coke, Sprite), PepsiCo (Pepsi, Diet Pepsi, Mountain Dew), and Cadbury-Schweppes (Dr. Pepper and 7-UP). CSDs were a promotion intensive category. Product, promotion, packaging, and pricing innovations were constant though usually incremental, quickly diffusing throughout category. In the 1990s, cola growth slowed and the flavor CSDs did very well. Sprite, Mountain Dew, and Dr. Pepper all enjoyed great success, although 7-UP continued to struggle. in 1999, however, all CSD sales suffered as a result of customers sticker shock to a category-wide 5% retail price increase, and also a trend toward experimentation with noncarbonated drinks and bottled water as substitutes for soft drinks, such as Gatorade, tea and juice blends by Snapple, Arizona, and SoBe, and the highly caffeinated energy drinks by Red Bull. 2. PepsiCo United States soft drink consumption was ubiquitous, until recently, soft drinks had meant cola. PepsiCo was widely considered to be one of the most sophisticated and aggresive marketing company. In North America, the company had three divisions, each with category-leading brand. Pepsi and Mountain Dew were the number two and three soft drinks. In the cola wars, Pepsi directly attacked Coke with advertising designed to make Pepsi the hipper and more stylish choice of the new generation, implying that Coke was a drink for older people. 3. Mountain Dew Mountain Dew was invented by the Hartman Beverage Company in Knoxville, Tennessee in the late 1940s. It was then acquired in 1964 by PepsiCo. B. Case Objectives and Frame Work 1. Carefully analyze Mountain Dews prior communications. Based on these communications and other information in the case, find out the answer of: Mountain Dews segmentation, targetting, and positioning Marketing environmental factors should be consider Assess Mountain Dews brand equity 2. Based on the above analysis , what is the Mountain Dews most important objectives in launching a new communication campaign.

3. Carefully assess the five proposed new advertising campaigns. Provide rationale and criteria, and rank them. 4. Recommendations of the advertising campaigns C. STP Analysis Group of individuals who possess similar needs and choices represent a segment of market. Mountain dew has segmented itself mainly on the basis of demography and lifestyle in a niche market of adventurer and extreme sports. In this niche market most of the consumers are youth. The key features of this market are: Age: Mountain dew is targeting the consumer of age 12-28 means youth or teenagers. Cold drinks are very popular among this age group and became a part of lifestyle. In the term of life stage this age group falls in youth or teenage who lives with their parents and are depends on their parents economically. To target this age group Mountain Dew is making its availability easily to consumer in different volumes. Lifestyles: They are targeting lifestyles of their consumer and it is reflected in their advertising objectives. The chief and main consumers of mountain dew are the youth who are ready to take on excitement, extreme sporting and adventure. They are daring, fun loving, confident and energetic. It is targeting the consumers tendency of fearlessness. Income Level: It is not concentrating on income levels because their target consumer can easily purchase the product as it is charging the standard price for different volumes. It is also not important because all the other major soft drinks also have the similar price of their variants.

Mountain Dew is targeting customers which are generally college students and young executives. Generally customers of youth group are not concerned about price. This is a niche market of adventurer, daring, and extreme sports lover and most of the people falls in this category are young. Positioning of brand or product is choice of a company to target the market where it can compete and take advantage over competitor. Positioning statement of Mountain Dew by PepsiCo is: To 18 year old males, who embrace excitement, adventure and fun, Mountain Dew is the great tasting carbonated soft drink that exhilarates like no other because it is energizing, thirst quenching, and has a one of a kind citrus flavour. Companys positioning statement itself defining dews strategy that this drink will target and made impact among the persons who are adventurer, funny, excited and daring. Also it is positioning itself by promoting itself as a high energy and citrus flavour drink.

D. Brand Communication For Mountain Dew the brand communication had to both present a powerful message to the youth audience and appeal to the current franchise who were often much older. 1. Branding in Cultural Trend PepsiCo and BBDO paid close attention to cultural trends. They were particularly focused on track music and sports since these activities were so central to youth culture. a. Music Trend Example: Rap music trend in 1990s, Rock music trend in 1980s, and Techno music trend in 1990s. b. Sports Trend Example: teen enthusiastic in mountain biking, skateboarding, paragliding, BMX biking, in-line skating, snowboarding, bungee jumping. c. Gen X Ethos During 1990s, teens and young adults evinced a growing cynicism toward the dominant work-oriented value of the previous generation and toward corporations more generally. These youth adopted a campy interest in nontrendy products. 2. The Campaign a. Country Cool suburban teens b. Do the Dew diet mountain dew c. Done That extreme sport

E. Attributes of The Creative To assess the five proposed new creative, we need to define several criterias to compare the value from each alternatives. 1. Benefits Product attributes: energizing, quenching, great taste 2. Symbolism Symbols: exhilarating experience Identities: irreverent, daring, and fun 3. Resonance Quality: great taste Response: exhilaration, excitement 4. Story Is the creative simple? Understandable? Humorous? 5. Product Integration Is the product well integrated in the story? Universal appeal? 6. Campaign Does the creative integrate well in the company?

F. The New Creative Assessment of each proposed new creative done with following analysis. 1. Labor of Love A humorous spot about the birth of a Dew drinker. The doctor calls out, code green and retreats to a catching position. The baby shoots out of he mother inside the labor room like a canon and the doctor catches the baby wearing a base ball mitt. This advertising picturize that the father dew dude is a young boy in his teens, in a way to portray the point 1 above. It also captures the fun part with the hilarious spot. However, it misses out on the universal appeal (the whole labor plot would be perceived as a sensitive issue by the conservative community). Also with the base ball glove it loses its generic nature , that it cannot be displayed during a super bowl event. Might be considered offensive Not congruous with psychographic images May not appeal to loyal consumer category like traditional families, Working class towns, downscale rural. 2. Cheetah In the African plain, one of the Dew dudes is chasing a Cheetah. The Dew dude catches up to Cheetah, holds its mouth, put his hand into the mouth and through to stomach and takes out an empty Dew can with few holes. Apparently the Cheetah has stolen his Dew can and has even drank it. The advertisement ends with a Bad Cheetah comment. This advertising picturize that the daring personality of he Dew dude that too in a naturistic rural back ground. It also captures the fun part with the Dew dude taking the can out of Cheetahs stomach and warning the Cheetah. It has the universal appeal as the selection of Dew dudes (all 4 are shown at the end) themselves belonging to different ethnic groups and the plot being a generic one dealing with African wild life. However, the advertising could be perceived as a predictable one, on the similar ones that Montain Dew has been using based on X games. It does piggyback on the features of extreme sports. It has a potential to be a large production. Promotes all the product, emotional and personality benefits as required by management. Appeals to the psychographic imagery (adventurous, wild) associated with Mountain Dew as well as to the rugged working class and rural towns. Pooling out on the Dew Dudes might negatively affect the campaign as it would cause repetition

3. Dew or Die A hilarious plot where a villain plans to blow the planet. The dew dudes are called in and in a sequence of daredevil maneuvers, they accidentally save the world, powered by a spilt can of dew. This advertising picturize that the daring personality of the dudes simultaneously portraying them as funful and care free guys How ever the plot looks to be on the extreme side appealing only to the kids and not to the teens or adults. So it does not have he universal appeal. This advertising may convey message of militancy. Promotes the emotional and personality benefits as required by management. Appeals to the lifestyle and values of the target segment; shows cool, carefree attitude but saving the world at the same time. Background and heroic theme would attract the target segment as well as rural base. 4. Mock Opera A parody of Queen song Bohemian Rhapsody. The advertising portrays the story of altered lyrics. Alternative sports action in which the athletes just miss cans od dew as they shoot by. This advertising picturize the fun part, and has a universal appeal through the opera plot. Also the message is communicated through the lyrics. This advertising can relate to many of the potential viewers . Also, this advertising does not feature extreme sports. Appeals to varied demographic sets by using an already hit number. Catches on to the trend of Retro becoming trendy and hence appeals to the GenX. 5. Showstopper Choreographed production number that mimics a Buzby musical dance from 1930s, where the dancers are silver clad BMX riders and skate boarders who performs for the dew dudes posing as directors. This advertising picturize the fun part, and has a universal appeal through the dance plot. It can tell that musical is from the 30s Extravagant theme in line with Super Bowl.

G. Conclusion and Recommendation From all the assessment points aboves, recomendation will be: Select Cheetah as the first creative campaign, and shortlist Mock Opera. Conduct market research through ethnography to avoid any miss-communication to consumer about the value propositioning toward consumer