CorpComms Magazine

After 12 years out of the market and off the shelves, American beverage company PepsiCo is relaunching the citrus-flavoured fizzy drink in the UK as Mountain Dew Energy with an entirely social media based marketing campaign.

PepsiCo's decision to start selling the drink in the UK again was prompted by an online petition for its reintroduction, boasting 7486 signatures. The new campaign will initially target existing fans, focusing on the drink's high caffeine content and urging consumers to 'get plugged in' to 'shockingly drinkable energy'.

The brand, which has a particularly loyal youth following in the US, has long been a trail-blazer on social networks, taking crowdsourcing to new heights and bigger crowds. The soft drink's Facebook page currently boasts over 870,000 fans. Back in 2007, the company launched the campaign 'Dewmocracy' asking fans of the original product to pick three new flavours for the beverage and vote on which would become a permanent fixture.

Last year it upped its democratic credentials, turning to fans for guidance on every aspect of the drinks, from flavour, colours and names through to packaging designs and advertising.

Tiffany Welsh, brand manager at PepsiCo, said: 'The launch is all because of fans and their online campaigning, so it felt right for our marketing strategy to be an extension of this. That's why we have focused on social media, to harness the power of word-of-mouth that made this launch happen.'

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