Mountain Dew Now Courting More Than Just White Suburbia

Mountain Dew doesn't just want to be the soda of choice for young white suburbanites anymore. PepsiCo has launched a new marketing campaign that it hopes can bring what Bloomberg hilariously terms "urban cool" to the brand, starring more diverse endorsers such as Lil Wayne and Mexican-American skateboarder Paul Rodriguez. An ad narrated by Lil Wayne starts airing this week, and next month it'll launch a video contest promotion called "DEWeezy," a play on the rapper's Weezy nickname.

Mountain Dew is the nation's best-selling non-cola soft drink, but its popularity is concentrated in the suburbs of the Plains and Southeast. About 80% of its consumers are white, which is a problem, because Caucasians represent a shrinking market segment. "It's been a matter of messaging," Dew's president of marketing tells Bloomberg. "We haven’t really talked to this differentiated, emerging teen base as much as we have that heartland consumer."