Mountain Dew Debacle Shows Why You Can't Let The Internet Play Mad Libs With Your Product

UPDATE: Reps for Mountain Dew have sent a statement to Consumerist clarifying its involvement (or apparent lack thereof) in the disastrous promotion.

“Dub the Dew,” a local market promotional campaign that was created by one of our customers – not Mountain Dew – was compromised. We worked diligently with our customer’s team to remove all offensive content that was posted and put measures in place to ensure this doesn’t happen again. Mountain Dew has a legacy of engaging its most loyal fans to tap innovative ideas for the brand through really successful programs like “DEWMocracy” and “Your Malt Dew” and so we sincerely apologize to all of our fans who may have been offended by this customer’s program.

We don’t think the issue is that people were offended. It’s that anyone would think that this sort of promotion was a good idea…

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The people at Mountain Dew aren’t stupid, which is why it’s a bit baffling that the day-glo soft drink decided to just let the Internet name its new supposedly green apple-flavored beverage.

So of course once Mountain Dew (or rather “Mtn Dew” — no, forget that silliness) opened up the floodgates, the Internet (led by a certain, notorious message board whose name rhymes with “4chan”) responded with a host of possible names that combine some variation of “granny” with references to masturbation and/or ejaculation, along with everyone’s favorite Wilford Brimley reference “Diabeetus.”

Of course, what probably made PepsiCo pull the voting site down from the Internet was one top-rated name suggestion, “Hitler did nothing wrong.”

Oddly enough, among the obvious gag names in the top 10 was “Tempest,” which we assume was either the top-voted, non-joke name — or a sexual act that we dare not Google.

Of course, it’s possible that the oracles atop Dew Mountain knew what they were getting into from the beginning and never had any actual intent of letting the Internet name its next flavor.

After all, when it finally does announce the name (which will undoubtedly be the result of focus groups and math), it will now get more press than it ever would have if Mountain Dew had never tried the stunt to begin with.

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