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How It Probably Happened

We don't know for sure, of course. Not many people do or ever will. Glass-and-steel conference rooms with all-night PowerPoint presentations? An idea on the back of a gas station receipt? A drunken dart game with the entire PepsiCo soft drink lineup on the board, and whatever gets hit gets changed?

No matter. However it went down, PepsiCo is in the business of making money, and there must have been ample (and seemingly solid) evidence that changing Diet Mountain Dew would enhance its chances of doing so. In this vein, as I see it, PepsiCo made two big mistakes.

First, they grossly underestimated the loyalty the typical Diet Mountain Dew drinker has to the product. Consistently I read and hear that not only do Diet Dew drinkers rarely drink anything else, they drink large quantities of Diet Dew. Since the summer of 1987, I have drunk 2 to 4 liters of Diet Dew daily without exception. That's an annual consumption of nearly 290 gallons; a lifetime consumption to date of more than 5,400 gallons. Figuring $1 per liter (which is high for supermarket 2- and 3-liters, but low for convenience store 20-oz. bottles, and therefore likely a decent figure to use), I've spent more than $20,000 on Diet Mountain Dew in that time. I have no loyalty to any other consumer product that even approaches this depth.

When a guy's on pace to drink a backyard swimming pool of your product in his lifetime, you alienate him at your peril.

Many of my fellow alienated Diet Dew drinkers tell similar stories. When I review signatures at the petition at http://www.fightforflavor.com/, I'm frequently surprised by others' reports that indicate that my consumption isn't even all that high, comparatively speaking.

It's difficult for me to believe that PepsiCo knew we were here and alienated us without regard for the consequences. It's more plausible that they knew we were here and that they'd lose some of us, but such losses would be offset by loyal drinkers who switched to the new taste, as well as (younger; see below) others outside the fold who'd be attracted by the new taste and become new Diet Dew drinkers.

Such a groundswell is Godotian.

The second big mistake PepsiCo made was assuming that similarity in taste to regular Mountain Dew was the primary appeal of Diet Mountain Dew. Whatever else you read or think about the Tuned Up Taste abomination, it is fairly universally reported as much sweeter. As sweetness is the most obvious difference between a diet soft drink and a regular soft drink, it's not hard to imagine a product development executive reading findings that demonstrate a sweeter product, and giving the go-ahead on it. It's more intense. It's more like an energy drink.

That leads me to the demographic/target market element here. PepsiCo has spent much time, effort, and money to pitch the Mountain Dew products at a youthful market, and perhaps it has been mystified that its Diet Mountain Dew customers haven't trended downward in age with the rest of the Mountain Dew family.

I'm reminded of the Honda Element. Introduced in 2002, the Element is a somewhat odd little SUV with a number of features, such as a rubber-plastic floor, large rearward-swinging rear doors, and a low price, intended to appeal to young drivers with active lifestyles. It's clear from its initial advertising and comment on the product that Honda intended the Element for young, outdoorsy, on-the-go types who wanted an SUV, but didn't want the high price and "mommy wagon" connotation of a traditional mid-sized truck-based vehicle.

Well, guess what? Those young, outdoorsy, on-the-go types aren't buying it. Their parents are. Attracted to the vehicle's eminent practicality, low cost, and Honda's reputation for reliability, the Element is being snatched up by recent empty-nesters and even senior citizens, not hipster surfers and the pierced, tattooed sweethearts on their arms.

I suspect Honda's still not sure why the Element isn't the active-lifestyle young-and-hip party wagon it was when it emerged from development and hit the streets. Please note, however, that Honda hasn't responded to its apparent marketing misstep by attempting to ramrod it into the intended demographic. Making the Element available in only day-glow neon colors, or saddling every unit with a $2000 sound system, or putting those self-spinning wheels on it would probably move the age demographic downward, but at what cost? Somebody wants these cars, and the money being exchanged for them is green and good. Leave well enough alone, even if it's not the somebody you thought it would be.

Now, would the curent Element demographic be alienated by, say, a new TV campaign in which Jessica Simpson sprawls herself on the hood and says provocative things? Perhaps in a few cases, but by and large, probably not. As with this hypothetical campaign, so with the steady trend in Mountain Dew advertising of young people doing crazy things, speaking the current youthful slang, and so forth. I left my 20s five years ago and was never all that hip to begin with, so I've always found the ultra-edgy Mountain Dew advertising a bit silly. Nevertheless, the product I loved remained, and that's all that counted, right?

Wrong. Never underestimate the power of misguided market research.

In its pursuit to "energy drink"-ize Diet Mountain Dew, PepsiCo has (perhaps somewhat resentfully) torpedoed what seems to be its bread-and-butter Diet Dew customer base. It is a base that enjoyed the old drink largely because it wasn't too sweet, and wasn't too intense. It is a base that enjoyed the consistent drinkability of the product, and that it could be consumed repeatedly without a pummeling of thick artificiality.

It is a base that may not have been young and hip, but that certainly did spend a lot of money on Diet Mountain Dew.

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