Mountain Dew to Expand Skateboard DVD Premium Parties

Pepsi-Cola Co. is working on plans to roll out an innovative DVD premium giveaway it pioneered last year for Mountain Dew.

Mountain Dew woos skaters with underground DVDs

The Brick and Mortar guerilla campaign gets its third flight in New York City this year, with plans to add other cities later in the year. The effort targets urban youth with a grassroots film campaign: Skateboard filmmakers produce
Brick and Mortar DVDs that Mountain Dew distributes via independent retailers and offbeat screening parties.

Pepsi’s third event will push the next DVD,
Brick and Mortar 3; events in June and November 2004 drew each drew 1,000-plus participants.

Mountain Dew taps skateboard filmers to make underground mix-tape style DVDs documenting New York lifestyle scenes, from hidden skate spots and the Gotham Girls Roller Derby to graffiti artists, urban tattoos and playground basketball.

The DVDs are produced by Mountain Dew and local retailers, then thousands of copies are distributed through those local skateboarding shops, record stores and T-shirt shops.

Mountain Dew also hosts large-scale release parties in an unusual location: the Brooklyn Bowl, an abandoned warehouse that skaters converted into an indoor skate park by building a gigantic wooden bowl themselves. Word-of-mouth and viral e-mail invitations sends skaters to this unmarked, underground landmark for the film screening (on two 30-foot walls inside the Bowl), urban art installations, “best trick” contests among local skaters (with a $500 prize), custom Mountain Dew bars and ice cream and hot dogs from Brooklyn street vendors. The venue is lit with projections of Mountain Dew and Brick and Mortar logos. Nine local sponsors include
Bounce magazine, Black Star Music & Video and 2nd Nature Skate Shop.

The November party had so many people there the police shut it down, said Michael Blatter, president of guerilla marketing agency Mirrorball: “The true mark of a great party is one that gets shut down.”

Mountain Dew also sponsors hip local events like “the Vinyl Klash,” a vinyl toy exhibition at Brooklyn’s Rivera Gallery. Ads in underground ‘zines featured the work of Brooklyn artists.

New York City-based Mirrorball created the program and handles the filming, distribution and screening parties.

The DVD premiums give Mountain Dew a presence among urban action-sports enthusiasts long after the screening parties.

“We talked to [skateboarders] and asked what would be valuable to them and good for their community. They sent back to us the idea for DVDs, and told us how to capture the images,” Blatter said. “We helped fulfill things that were missing in this urban culture.”