Canadians elect a new Mountain Dew flavour

Instead of rolling out a new Mountain Dew flavour every summer, PepsiCo Canada and BBDO decided to launch four of the top U.S. flavours in Canada simultaneously. Canucks were asked to try each flavour and given a limited time to vote for the one they wanted to see stay on shelves.

"DEWmocracy" launched with an adrenaline-pumping spot, with each flavour packed in crates at a secret base in the U.S. desert and loaded onto a cargo plane. Once over Canada, the crates were pushed out and shown falling to the ground. The spot ended with a cliffhanger (not showing which crate made it out alive) and asked fans to vote to save their favourite flavour.

The brand invited its male target of 16- to 24-year-olds to vote via Facebook or text. Voting gave them the chance to win $50,000 and they could increase their chances by going online and entering pins found on the product. More than 136,000 pins were redeemed and at the close of voting, the brand had achieved 110% of its full-year volume goal in six months.

Dew also reached out to its core group of fanatics with a secondary contest, inviting them to create a video for their favourite flavour for the chance to win 1% of the net sales for two years.