Mountain Dew Films, the brand’s new marketing arm to promote action sports through film, has financed a documentary film on the history of snowboarding, its first foray into filmmaking.
A trailer for the film, First Descent, will begin running in theaters this month, prior to its release nationwide on Dec. 2. The story spotlights some of snowboarding’s early pioneers—including Shawn Farmer, Nick Perata and Terje Haakonsen—and the sport’s current superstars —Shaun White and Hannah Teter. Universal Pictures is distributing the film and will market and distribute the DVD release, MD Films said.
The storyline, set in the mountains of Alaska, incorporates the Mountain Dew brand in subtle ways in an effort to avoid the appearance of the film being one long advertisement for the beverage. For example, Mountain Dew sponsors two of the boarders featured in the film and its logo appears on their helmets and snowboards. The beverage is also a sponsor of some of the events shown in the film and its branding appears in those scenes, according a report in The Wall Street Journal.
“Universal Pictures is the perfect partner for this project,” said John Galloway, executive producer, MD Films, in a statement. “They share our passion for the sport and their marketing expertise and distribution strength ensures that the film will reach broad audiences across the country. We have been big supporters of snowboarding for more than a decade and we hope to introduce new fans to the sport through this film.”
Mountain Dew, a PepsiCo brand, has long been associated with action sports. Even before there were organized competitions for extreme sports, Mountain Dew was there. Before Dogtown was a sports Mecca, Dew was signing partnerships with action sports athletes. Via these alliances, teens and tweens saw the brand not as a bright-yellow caffeine-infused soft drink, but as a member of the action-sports community.
Mountain Dew was a founding partner of ESPN’s X-Games in 1994 and is the title sponsor of the Dew Action Sports Tour, the first-ever, season-long multi-sport professional tour in action sports that kicked off in June. Shaun White is one of the athletes that “hang out” at The House of Dew, a place for the brand to interact with fans at the events. Mountain Dew is also the presenting sponsor of the Game Live on Xbox college tour, which hits 25 campuses with a pavilion of gaming stations and a suite of new games for students to sample. That tour, now in its third year, began earlier this month.
