Mountain Dew Slip and Slide advertisement features itself on YouTube. It starts with a man carrying a bike up a set of stairs outside in sunny weather. The young man is unusually formally dressed for bike riding and in particular, overdressed for riding down a steep ramp that will soon be in shot. This immediately grabs the audience’s attention.

It’s soon revealed that the ramp leads to a large pool. An exciting slow motion effect is used as soon as he leaves contact with the end of the ramp. Creating suspense and keeping the viewers eyes glued to the clip. It’s an impressive amount of “air time”.

Just before he impacts the body of water the footage is back to real life speed and the music starts to play. The music is one of many strong points the advertisement possesses. The music is funky, fast paced, generally happy and young without trying to hard to relate to the younger market.

There are quick shots of other young people of both genders going down the seemingly slippery ramp with different uses of camera work. Every shot has a unique way of grabbing your attention. The use of the camera is great because nearly every shot offers something different. If it’s not a different stunt on the slide, it’s a different angle that adds a near interactive viewing experience. This is created with the point of view camera work and close up shots of various experiences in the day.

Only once did I feel as though I was being sold a product but even then, the creative and fun way they get around the task of being noticed didn’t take me away from the experience. This was achieved with what seemed to be a GoPro attached to a Mountain Dew bottle recording a young man attempting to slide down the ramp while drinking at the same time. The logo is seen clearly enough. The shot is exciting fun and placed at the end of the ad as a good way to leave with the product shot in the final scene. This is a good solution as it embodies the brand / product with the fun of the day and doesn’t just claim to hold the values the clip conveys at the end with a graphic and a call to action.

The director seemed very well prepared with what he wanted out of every shot in relation to the timing of the day. It appeared to be shot all in one day and uses the sun nicely in the background for the majority of the angles. This adds to the feeling of summer and the bonus of good lens flare in a lot of shots.

The shots had a good balance of happy faces, daring slide stunts, funny mistakes and quirky shots and made for an enjoyable watch and great example of brand sponsorship.

Post by Sean Johnston