The team behind Mountain Dew is doing quite a bit of innovative stuff these days – odd soda flavor “Dewritos” not withstanding – but along with delivering new products, it also wants to immerse its audience in a great new virtual experience.
Back in September, the team announced the production of a new live-action, 360-degree experience that utilizes the Oculus VR headset to create a virtual “Dew Tour Brooklyn” experience. Those in attendance could put on the headset and check out skateboarder Paul Rodriguez taking part in a run alongside the “Mtn. Dew” skate team for a two-minute period.
With the experience, which you can view in the video below, Mountain Dew director of brand marketing Jamal Henderson explained, “This is not an advertisement. This is an experience.”
According to Adweek, this is just the first collaboration that Mountain Dew has with the VR headset, as it’s looking to create a number of videos for users to download and enjoy, placing them in the shoes of other extreme sports athletes, as well as other parties.
“When you think about the consumer — and it all starts with the consumer — they’re consuming more media. In our feeds, we want to see more content. The more we can be a part of that editorial and a part of the feed and not disruptive pre-roll, I think that’s the way for our brand to tell our story,” said Henderson.
This would put Mountain Dew into competition with the likes of Red Bull and GoPro, each of which have a large stake in extreme sports in one form or another, with video footage and other sponsorships in play.
This isn’t the first time that a major company has taken advantage of the Oculus VR headset for promotion, as a number of movie studios utilized it for projects at San Diego Comic-Con, and Marriott recently hosted a special “virtual tour” of dream vacation spots in certain locations.
Mountain Dew faces a large uphill battle against its competition, but Henderson believes the company will score big. “Brands that target millennials are going to be in that ‘lean-in experience’ space,” he explained. Oculus VR “is the next iteration of that. I 100 percent think that this is where brands are going. I just hope they don’t do it as fast as we do.”
