In a sentence: Mountain Dew opened a contest online for users to submit their own freeform ideas for naming a new product and the Prank Kings of the Internet (4chan) decided to manipulate the contest. How many brands need to get burned before they will finally learn that giving the Internet card blanche to name your new product is a bad idea?

Most contests online that rely on user votes to win wind up hacked or unfairly won by the people with large social followings online (that are willing to do what you ask anyhow). This is a perfect example of the creative and marketing teams not having a clue how the Internet works – or the culture. Two words – risk analysis. Not a lot of brands think about this or have the deep and wide experience to even know what to look for. Maybe they think it's easier to just pay to clean up the mess if and when it happens. I know not every 'gotcha' can be avoided, but history proves that contests like this get hacked and trolled at a MUCH higher rate than others. Also, Mountain Dew's target demographic is probably more in line with 4chan and Anonymous, so it was pretty certain their contest would be hacked.

Another more recent example involves Nancy Upton who won the American Apparel plus size model contest by 'rigging' it with funny and sarcastic – but off brand – photos to gain votes according to American Apparel's own contest rules. She won by a landslide, but was denied the win because AA didn't think she fit the brand image of their company. The rules of the contest weren't clear enough (in my opinion) and they awarded the prize to a more controllable and smaller-framed model. Did it hurt sales? Probably not. Most people that knew about the event have probably forgotten about it by now – that's the "blink-forget" nature of the Internet.

I can't wait to see if Mountain Dew has a response to this (my guess is they will just pull down the contest). For the record, I'm a fan of "TRON" and "The Big Lebowski" and vote for naming the new Mountain Dew drink "Jeff Bridges"… it's in the running.

Original site: http://dubthedew.com/gallery-of-names/
Cache site (hacked) : http://dubthedew.com.nyud.net/gallery-of-names/

(Both links most likely Not Safe for Work.) #blog  

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Dub the Dew!
Dub the Dew!

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