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." (More Lil Wayne stories.)