• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, December 15, 2009

Mountain Dew collaborated with passionate soft drink fans to create three products that will hit store shelves in April 2010. Through social media, grassroots campaigns and in-home trials, the company determined products, flavor, color, tastes, advertising and brand message.

The road from product development to the retail store took a detour toward consumers. Mountain Dew relied on a proprietary site supported with technology from Passenger, a platform that lets companies create Web communities where brands can communicate directly with customers.

Social network efforts narrowed the next product launch from seven possible beverages to three. "If the consumer's voice isn't heard, and they don't get an idea from brands why they do what they do, you will slowly see the affinity for the brands start to erode," says Brett O'Brien, director of marketing at Mountain Dew, a Pepsi company. "We may be a mass brand, but to our fans, those Dew drinkers think of us as a niche product they remain passionate about."

Moving forward with that ideology becomes important as store shelves become more crowed with a variety of products.

For Mountain Dew, the wake-up call began in 2009, when the company hit the streets in "sampling vehicles," allowing people to try the seven potential flavors. For the really passionate fans, the company packaged up the seven flavors in a box, along with a Cisco Flip video camera, and asked people to have a sampling party. The videos were posted on YouTube.

Mountain Dew recruited soft drink lovers from social sites like Facebook, Twitter, blogs and the company's site traffic. The brand created a Web site called Dew Labs consisting of about 4,000 passionate fans. Each member received samples of the three final flavors, chose a favorite and joined the corresponding Flavor Nation." Scientists who created the flavors provided insight into the process, so people could decide how best to describe their beverages.

Within Dew Labs, several Dew Nations were created, each focusing on a different flavor. The flavors need a color to communicate the message. So Dew Labs members received an 18-color palette and a "color pour" video, and selected the three that best matched their beverage. They shot videos based on the color, and people picked their favorites on Facebook.

Naming the beverages meant members submitting lists of suggestions. Then each group chose their three favorites once Mountain Dew's legal department had vetted the names. The finalists entered into a Twitter race by making DEW fans followers of their favorite names, and the names with the most followers would win. Typhoon led with 509 followers; Distortion, 231; and White Out, 493.

Aside from naming the beverage, the challenge went out to create a look for each flavor. Entrants had to design a basic Mountain Dew label, and fans judged the style on Facebook. Hundreds of submissions were narrowed to 10. Those in each Flavor Nation voted for the artist they felt was best suited to their product.

Each group created a TV commercial. They submitted a 12-second Mountain Dew spot uploaded to 12seconds.tv, where Dew fans voted for their favorites. Voting ended on Dec. 13, with six finalists. After the beverages are released in April, the groups will rally friends, family and others across the U.S to vote for their product. The flavor with the most votes becomes a permanent member of the Dew family.

O'Brien says those who participated had to clear hurdles. "One hurdle was to prove their love for Dew," he says. "If they drank several daily, they were in. If they drank one a month, they didn't have the passion we needed."