• June 11, 2009

Dr Pepper Snapple Group's Venom Energy line is leveraging consumers' devotion to their local sports teams and heroes to the max with a marketing approach that uses 14 different sports stars regionally rather than one star throughout the country.

Venom has rounded up stars from a variety of sports as spokespeople to be featured in marketing campaigns and in-store promotions in their teams' respective geographic regions.

The sports stars signed include Joe Johnson (Atlanta Hawks), Adam Jones (Baltimore Orioles), Milan Lucic (Boston Bruins), Lance Briggs (Chicago Bears), DeMarcus Ware (Dallas Cowboys), Kenyon Martin (Denver Nuggets), Pavel Datsyuk (Detroit Red Wings), Lance Berkman (Houston Astros), Jordan Farmar (Los Angeles Lakers), Joey Porter (Miami Dolphins), Max Talbot (Pittsburgh Penguins), Roger Mason (San Antonio Spurs), Patrick Willis (San Francisco 49ers) and Lofa Tatupu (Seattle Seahawks). --Karlene Lukovitz