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The Upper Peninsula is not part of Wisconsin–while that may not be news to the people of the U.P., Mountain Dew seemed to be a little confused when they included the region as part of our neighboring state in their recent “Dewnited States” campaign.
To make up for that mistake, representatives from Mountain Dew were in Marquette over the weekend to pass out free bottles with a specially designed label featuring the U.P.
Mountain Dew Vice President of Marketing Nicole Portwood apologized for the mistake. “We accidentally included the U.P. as part of Wisconsin in one of our stylized maps,” said Portwood. “The people of the U.P., being as proud as they are and their awesome place, called us out on it. It was an honest mistake but it was a mistake nonetheless.”
Yoopers quickly caught on that something was wrong when the bottles were released and Upper Peninsula Supply Co. owner Bugsy Sailor was among those to take their beef onto social media. “So about a month ago, I sent out the first tweet to send this whole thing viral,” said Sailor. “Little by little, that number of retweets and likes kept popping up pretty fast and it was incredible to watch.”
There’s nothing Mountain Dew can do about the bottles already out there, but several people were treated to the limited edition UP bottle. “We engaged with(UP Supply Co.) to design a custom Upper Peninsula Dewnited label,” said Portwood. “We made those bottles and we’re here today to give them away and thank the people of the Upper Peninsula for being so awesome.”
This isn’t the first time the UP has been stiffed, but North Iron Church assistant pastor Travis Ryan says at least Mountain Dew was willing to own up to it. “I thought it was really cool how they recognized that they made the mistake,” said Ryan. “It seems like that happens pretty often that the U.P. is forgotten, but they owned up to it. They came up here, they made some pretty cool stuff and gave that away to people so I thought it was pretty cool that they did that.”
Sailor agrees. “It’s no secret to us that we are left off the map frequently or associated with Wisconsin or Canada,” said Sailor. “So it’s awesome to see Mountain Dew participate in a fun way to give back to the community.”
Only 906 of the limited edition bottles were made and some will be available at the U.P. State Fair, but don’t expect to find them on store shelves.
You can view the video along with the original story from ABC-10’s Tyree Smith at https://abc10up.com/2019/08/12/mountain-dew-apologizes-with-merchandise-and-new-bottle-design/
