This IPL season, when it comes to pure sports highlights, what’s your favorite legendary moment on the cricket field? Is it Pollard catching the big fish Dhoni at the boundary, Gayle’s storm against PWI, Miller’s “when it’s in the arc, it’s out of the park” shot, or for a fun twist, Gilly’s farewell wicket delivery?
In cricket’s shortest format, moments of brilliance make a big impact. Ruchira Jaitly, Category Director- Flavours at PepsiCo India, stated that “the T20 tournament is all about those key moments that can change the game and boost viewer excitement.” This shows that the idea behind Mountain Dew’s new IPL campaign aligns with the essence and excitement of T20.
On the face of it, PepsiCo owned, Mountain Dew’s “Dew or Die” IPL campaign by no means, appears to be a flash in the pan kind of campaign. This is indeed a full-fledged 360 degree consumer engagement effort that also leverages the power of social media. And hence we decided to probe deeper to find out if it’s ‘Dew’ or a ‘Die’ campaign.
The ‘Dew or Die’ Campaign
The brand interacted with consumers on-air through ‘Extra-Innings’ Show, online through social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook, as well as in-stadia through IPL teams victory chants.
This IPL Mountain Dew partnered with three teams – Rajasthan Royals, Kings XI Punjab and Delhi Daredevils. On–air viewers were shown three ‘Dew or Die’ moments from the previous day’s matches, shortlisted by an expert panel. Viewers then had to choose one moment that defined the spirit of ‘Dew or Die’ and SMS the options. Fans, whose choice matches with the experts’ decision, could get a chance to be part of the Mountain Dew Xtreme Tours abroad.
For consumer engagement within the stadiums all three partner teams had created ‘Dew or Die’ victory chants that were amplified in-stadia by fans twice in every home game as well as through radio integrations. Here’s the Rajasthan Royals victory chant:
Twitter was employed to engage with consumers on a more real time basis. On the Mountain Dew India Twitter page with more than 4.2K followers, cricket fans had to choose their ‘Dew or Die’ moments during all matches in real time and tweet to the handle to win match tickets and team merchandise. In addition, many contests were designed around the hahstag #Dewordie, where users had to share or answer questions on the chant videos, or guess the players from a poster.
Dew or Die was also actively promoted on the Mountain Dew India Facebook page which has more than 1.7 mn likes. Before every match, the relevant teams ‘Dew or Die’ poster copy was put up on Facebook; the victory chants videos of the team were also promoted. Along with this there is a ‘Dew or Die’ Locker-room interview video featuring Rahul Dravid, Shane Watson and Ajinkya Rahane. A Facebook ‘like’ app ‘Locker room‘ was devised where fans had to unlock it to enter, by tweeting and sharing about it. It featured the video with the victory chant used by the team to get rid of their fear before matches.
How ‘Dew’ is it?
The high point about ‘Dew or Die’ is that it successfully maintains the consistency of previous brand propositions of ‘Do the Dew’, ‘Darr kea age jeet hai’ and the likes. It again connects with its consumers through the thread of overcoming one’s fear, as there is victory beyond it.
The activities on Facebook and Twitter strike the right balance with the existing brand proposition. Promoting the victory chants, getting fans to unlock the locker room and the various contests helped build a relevant engagement with fans and followers.
‘Dew or Die’ has created a brand proposition which can be seamlessly extended even after the IPL. What do you think?