Business Objective: Coca-Cola wanted to create and launch a brand to “out-gun” the incredibly successful Pepsi, Mountain Dew brand. Surge! was the answer to this challenge, a high-caffeine soda aimed at the lucrative male youth market.
Brand Strategy: Capture the teen boy mindset with a relevant, music driven, cult-like marketing that would resonate with this extremely cynical audience.
Brand Campaign: We created the “Surge game” a series of goofy-cool races that entailed a group of guys inventing events be the first to reach the can and claim the prize: a can of Surge!
Media: Using TV and billboards we created a cultural phenomenon that would get the target talking.
Result: Within 3 months of its launch Surge out sold Mountain Dew in all markets and reached cult status in High Schools around the country. It was the single most successful Coca-Cola new product launch ever.
