Skep gets oddly fixated on Mountain Dew
I recently watched a video that is a 5-hour deep-dive covering all known details about every Mountain Dew spin-off flavor:
Despite not having consumed a Mountain Dew in approximately ten years, I watched the entire thing. I can’t explain what possessed me to do it. I think my subscriptions were light that week. However, this video left me with a lot of unresolved questions:
Question 1
Is there really a market for multiple yearly flavor drops and restaurant-exclusive releases? I mean, I already know the answer to this: of course there is, or they wouldn’t keep doing it. But does the sales data really suggest that a significant number of customers who were originally going to purchase another soda instead choose a limited-release flavor? Plus, keep in mind that even if this is the case, those customers might have originally bought an original Mountain Dew or another Pepsi product, in which case switching to a limited release has little actual impact.
I guess this tactic must inspire people who like Mountain Dew to go out and buy more Mountain Dew. Again, the math of it all really seems like it shouldn’t work out—factoring in all the R&D, marketing, and production changes—but the evidence clearly shows I am wrong. Apparently, I should never go into business. Speaking of which…
Question 2
Shouldn’t a global conglomerate like PepsiCo have some sort of consistent brand strategy between countries? Like, I get that different markets will have different tastes, production challenges, things like that. But then you get cases where a flavor is released in the US, Canada, and Poland. Why Poland of all places? Or I think I recall the video talking about Canada taking part in the guess-the-flavor Halloween special one year, but Canada got the prior year’s flavor. Just like all these little inconsistencies that make it seem like the regional offices are all pretty much doing their own thing. It’s so bizarre.
Question 3
At what point do these flavors stop being “Mountain Dew”? By that, I guess I mean, what defines Mountain Dew?
To illustrate this, say you have original flavor Coca-Cola. Eventually, you release Cherry Coke. That’s Coca-Cola flavored with cherry. Cool, we agree that makes sense. Vanilla Coke, it’s Coca-Cola flavored with vanilla. Got it.
Then you release Sprite, but you call it Lemon-Lime Coke. Can we actually get away with this, or is Sprite too distinct an entity to be convincingly labeled “Coke”? If so, where’s the line? If not, what does calling something Coke actually mean? Or does it just become a term that is familiar but devoid of meaning whatsoever?
You see where I’m going with this. Personally, I didn’t think Code Red was Mountain Dew back then, and I still don’t, and you won’t convince me otherwise.
Question 4
Is there any discernible difference between many of these flavors anymore? What makes “a jolt of blackberry” different from “a blast of wildberry”? I have to be honest, if I’m eating something fruit-flavored that is not an actual fruit, my general response is “this tastes like fruit”. Something might taste like fruit differently, but in the end it all amalgamates to some vague fruit-like flavor. I sort of just assumed we were all okay with being lied to like this because we liked the illusion of choice. But can that illusion sustain a years-long marketing campaign?
…Again, resoundingly yes, why am I writing this.
Anyway, the biggest takeaway I had from this video was: I sure could go for a Mountain Dew. And I did go out and buy one, which makes me suspect this five-hour-long piece of indie media was actually a guerilla marketing campaign.
Of course, I bought original flavor. It was satisfying! At 77 grams of sugar per bottle though, I’ll have to wait ten more years before I’m allowed to have another.