Mountain Dew Makes MMO More Than Just a Game
John Gaudiosi
Advertising Age
January 28, 2008
NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- An anonymous hero rebels against
the forces of uniformity and seeks an elixir that will
change everything.
It sounds like a pilot for the Sci-Fi Channel or from a
lost Marvel Comic. It's actually how Pepsi-Cola is
describing its most ambitious foray into the
branded-gaming space: a rich, massively multiplayer
online game that supports an ever-expanding plan to let
consumers choose the next flavor of Mountain Dew. It's
no low-involvement proposition for consumers, which is
why the marketer is cheered by early returns.
"The idea was based around the fact that we know
consumers want to get more involved in creating their
own content as well as developing their own products,"
said Frank Cooper, VP-marketing at Pepsi-Cola North
America. "Our feeling was there was a way to bring
gaming and Mountain Dew together in a story-based form.
Here's a platform where consumers go through a story,
play a game and through the process develop a product."
The MMO game was created in large part by Oscar winner
Forest Whitaker and built by interactive agency
WhittmanHart.
28 minutes later
Mr. Cooper said the website, dewmocracy.com, has had
700,000 unique visitors, including 200,000 registered
members who have played the game. The average time spent
per gaming session is 28 minutes, he said.
"Those are great numbers, because we hadn't expected
that many people to get involved in phase one of this
campaign, which had an elaborate registration process
and had a pretty significant game that required a time
commitment," Mr. Cooper said. "With phase two, when the
program comes out of the game and people begin to
campaign and vote for the new flavor, that's the
mainstream proposition that allows non-gamers and anyone
to come in and vote in the Dewmocracy process. We expect
a bigger leap in numbers for that."
Pepsi has expanded its original plans. Instead choosing
one flavor that makes it to market, consumers in
February will be able to choose three new flavors that
will be put to a national taste test starting in July.
"That will give the consumers a chance to taste it,
experience it, and we'll have a vote over the next eight
to 10 weeks, and we'll pick the final product," Mr.
Cooper said. The winning product will enter the market
in November.
Here to stay
While the program will shift to viral voting and
campaigning, the "Dewmocracy" game won't go away. Mr.
Cooper said elements of the game will be populated
across the web in smaller bites.
"If we get a significant reaction, we think there's an
opportunity to expand this game into a broader online
property," Mr. Cooper said. "We're seeking feedback from
the consumer about what parts of the game they enjoy; is
the story line resonating? And if it is, we do have
plans to expand it into a long-term MMO."
Pepsi-Cola has a heritage of clearly aligning its
Mountain Dew brand with gamers, males 12 to 36 who spend
more of their free time playing video games than
watching TV. And while adver-gaming previously has
focused on simple, Flash-based, arcade-style games, such
as the recent Taco Bell fighting game "Taco Fu," "Dewmocracy"
explores a type of online connected game play that has
exploded with both casual and hard-core gamers through
the Blizzard Entertainment hit "World of Warcraft,"
which has more than 10 million paying subscribers.
Mr. Cooper believes what makes "Dewmocracy" unique is
not the game itself but the fact that this story-based,
interactive experience leads to product innovation that
enters the real world in the form of a new drink.
"That's the leap that I think no one else has made yet,"
Mr. Cooper said.