It was 2012. The internet was a different place back then—a bit more chaotic, slightly less sanitized, and heavily influenced by the collective whims of sites like 4chan and Reddit. This was the year that Mountain Dew decided to let the "fans" name their new green apple-flavored soda. They called the campaign Mountain Dew Dub the Dew. It seemed like a standard, play-it-safe marketing move designed to drive engagement. Instead, it became the textbook example of why you never, ever give the internet total control over your brand.
The idea was simple enough. Users would submit names, people would vote, and a new product would hit the shelves with a crowdsourced identity. It’s the kind of thing that looks great in a PowerPoint presentation at a corporate headquarters. But within hours, the leaderboard for the contest didn't look like a list of soda names. It looked like a fever dream of internet subcultures trying to out-edge each other.
The Day the Leaderboard Broke
The pranksters didn't just participate; they dominated.
Within a very short window of time, the top-voted name for the new soda was "Hitler did nothing wrong." If that wasn't bad enough, the rest of the top ten was filled with equally problematic or absurd entries. We’re talking about names like "Diabeetus," "Gushing Granny," and "Fapple." It was a complete derailment. The "Dub the Dew" website wasn't just being visited; it was being raided.
The mechanics of the disaster are actually pretty interesting from a technical standpoint. This wasn't just a few people clicking buttons. Users on 4chan’s /b/ board coordinated a massive effort to manipulate the voting system. They used scripts to automate votes, ensuring that the most offensive or ridiculous names stayed at the top of the list.
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Why the safeguards failed
Most companies today have sophisticated filters. In 2012, Mountain Dew’s digital team clearly wasn't prepared for the sheer scale of the "trolling" culture. They expected a few bad words that a simple profanity filter could catch. They didn't expect a coordinated campaign to turn their brand into a meme.
Honestly, the site itself was incredibly vulnerable. Beyond the names themselves, hackers actually compromised the site's CSS. They managed to put a pop-up on the page that claimed Mountain Dew was "shocked" by the results, and they even added a marquee that scrolled across the screen. It was a total loss of administrative control. It’s kinda fascinating how quickly a multi-million dollar brand's digital infrastructure can be dismantled by a group of bored people with basic coding skills and a specific sense of humor.
The Corporate Aftermath and the "Boaty McBoatface" Connection
Mountain Dew eventually pulled the plug. They didn't just end the contest; they scrubbed the entire site. They released a statement explaining that the contest was being cancelled because the "Dub the Dew" site had been compromised. They admitted that "custom-naming contests" were perhaps not the best way to engage with the public without tighter controls.
But the legacy of this failure lives on. It created a phenomenon often referred to as "The Mountain Dew Effect" or, more commonly later on, "Boaty McBoatface."
You might remember when the UK’s Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) asked the public to name a £200 million polar research ship. Despite the lessons of the Mountain Dew Dub the Dew disaster, they let the public vote. The winner? Boaty McBoatface.
The difference was that NERC handled it with a bit more grace. They eventually named the ship the RRS Sir David Attenborough but gave the name "Boaty" to one of the ship’s high-tech submersibles. Mountain Dew, on the other hand, just wanted the whole thing to disappear. They learned the hard way that when you invite the internet to your party, you can't be surprised when they trash the house.
Was there a winner?
Technically, no. The green apple flavor eventually made its way to the public, but under much more controlled circumstances. It was eventually released as "Electric Apple" under the Label Series or integrated into other limited-time offerings like Kickstart. The name "Dub the Dew" is now just a footnote in marketing textbooks—a warning to brand managers everywhere that "user-generated content" is a double-edged sword.
Why We Still Talk About Mountain Dew Dub the Dew
The reason this story stays relevant isn't just because of the shock value of the names. It’s because it represents a fundamental shift in how brands interact with consumers.
Before the social media era, brands pushed messages at people. Now, it's a conversation. But as Mountain Dew found out, conversations can go sideways. This event marked the end of the "wild west" of open crowdsourcing. If you notice today, most "name our product" contests are actually just a choice between three pre-approved names. You don't get to write in your own answer anymore.
Companies have realized that the risk to their brand equity is too high. A single afternoon of "Hitler did nothing wrong" being at the top of your official website can do damage that takes years to fix. It's about brand safety. It's about protecting the image.
The PR Perspective
If you talk to PR experts, they’ll tell you that Mountain Dew actually handled the exit fairly well by moving fast. They didn't let the site stay up for days. They killed it as soon as they realized they couldn't win. In the world of crisis management, speed is everything.
However, the mistake was the lack of "human in the loop" moderation. Even a basic team of moderators manually approving names before they went live would have saved them the headache. But back then, the goal was "viral engagement." They got the engagement. They just didn't want the kind they got.
Lessons Learned: How to Avoid a "Dub the Dew" Disaster
If you’re a business owner or a marketer, there are very specific takeaways here. You can’t just trust the "goodwill" of the general public when there’s an opportunity for a prank.
- Never use open text fields for public voting. This is the golden rule. If you want people to vote, give them a list of options you’ve already vetted.
- Implement rate limiting and CAPTCHAs. The 2012 site was easily botted. Modern security measures make it much harder for a small group of people to pretend they are a million people.
- Have a kill switch. You need a plan for what happens if the contest goes wrong. Mountain Dew had to scramble. You should have a "terms and conditions" clause that gives you the right to cancel or modify the contest at any time for any reason.
- Pre-moderation is mandatory. If you absolutely must have user-generated entries, they should never appear on the live site until a human being has looked at them and clicked "approve."
The Mountain Dew Dub the Dew saga remains the ultimate cautionary tale. It’s a reminder that while the internet can be a place of incredible creativity, it also has a deep-seated urge to poke the bear—especially when the bear is a multi-billion dollar corporation trying to act "cool."
Actionable Insights for Brand Managers
To ensure your next interactive campaign doesn't end up as a meme on a subreddit, follow these practical steps:
- Vetting over Voting: Use "User Generated Content" as a submission phase only. Gather ideas, then have an internal committee pick the top 5. Then let the public vote on those 5. This maintains the "engagement" without the risk of offensive results.
- Security Audits: Treat a marketing microsite with the same security rigors as your main site. Hackers look for weak points, and a temporary contest site is often an easy target.
- Community Management: Monitor social media sentiment in real-time. The "Dub the Dew" raid was being discussed openly on 4chan long before it hit the top of the leaderboard. If the team had been "listening" to those communities, they could have shut it down before the screenshots started circulating.
- Legal Protections: Ensure your contest rules explicitly forbid "trolling" or entries that are deemed "not in the spirit of the contest." This gives your legal team the cover they need to disqualify bad actors without appearing like you're just "censoring" fans.
The internet never forgets. Even fourteen years later, we're still talking about what happens when a soda company loses its grip on the wheel. Don't be the next case study.
Summary of the "Dub the Dew" Names (The Ones That Weren't Offensive)
While the offensive ones got the headlines, there were some "safe" but weird ones that also gained traction during the chaos:
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- "Sierra Mist" (which was funny because it's a competitor/sister brand)
- "Apple Juice" (boringly literal)
- "Green Goo"
- "Mountain Dew" (just the original name again)
Ultimately, the lesson is simple: if you give the internet a microphone, be prepared for it to scream. Make sure you're the one who controls the volume.