Mountain Dew's New Channel

Can’t get enough Mountain Dew? You're in luck, as the brand is launching its own multichannel network (MCN) with YouTube creators.  

The brand tells Fast Company that it's the first-ever brand-owned MCN, and the goal is to partner exclusively with culturally relevant influencers to create YouTube content across key verticals important to Mountain Dew, including action sports, basketball, art, music, gaming, and racing.  

Mountain Dew’s brand marketers have been hard at work in beta -- Dew's Green Label MCN has signed on hip-hop dancer D-trix, basketball influencer the Professor, and skateboarders Josh Katz and Nigel Alexander to star in a create one-of-a-kind content that forms a bond with its exisiting and potential consumers. But will it work? 

The move is part marketing and part moneymaking. The brand has teamed with Sylo to lead ad sales and revenue share with the business arm of MCN, and Epic Signal to head up influencer identification, acquisition and management. 

We’ve come a long way from paying mommy and other bloggers $25 or $50 to post a positive review to their followers. Dew Marketing Director Sadira Furlow said that the brand saw a chance to play a more active role in its content strategy: "We're no stranger to working with influencers, and over time we've really seen the value of YouTube influencers as key partners in helping us to forge relationships with young Millennials and Gen Z.” 

Bypassing the traditional MCN, the brand sees its own network as a more efficient way to partner with influencers, eliminating third-party management fees, providing a new revenue stream from ad sales, and forging a deeper, more authentic relationship with the influencers, allowing the brand access to year-long exclusive content.  

For the YouTubers it works with, the Green Label MCN guarantees upfront a long-term, exclusive brand integration deal that gives individual attention to each member in a crowded environment of one-off deals. 

This might be a brilliant way to get attention and to create ultra-hip videos. Will it sell more Dew, especially in an era of anti-soda sentiment? Some might argue that this type of marketing transcends all the good-for-you hype, while others including us, wonder just what we could achieve if this type of marketing muscle and creativity could be put against healthier offerings.