Scores of Floridians started lining up long before their neighborhood pool opened, and once it did, they quickly got down to the business at hand: dancing to live music, taking group photos, doing the limbo and sampling a new canned cocktail with a citrus kick.
The recent gathering, hosted by Hard Mountain Dew, had all the makings of an epic spring break bash. Because it was—except the guests weren’t millennials in Miami or college students in Daytona Beach.
The attendees were folks of a certain age living in a retirement community in the otherwise sleepy Gulf Coast town of North Port, halfway between Fort Myers and Tampa. The residents helped Hard Mountain Dew launch a new flavor called Livewire, while showing a visiting 34-year-old contest winner how they “Do the Dew.”
The event proved at least a few points: Rowdy retirees are not an urban legend, and carefully selected participants and a seemingly incongruous location can bring a marketing stunt to glorious life.
‘Really?’
Hard Mountain Dew’s goal was to “tap into the quirky, the unexpected and the downright outrageous—and yeah, maybe hoping we make drinkers think ‘really?’” Erica Taylor, senior brand director, told Adweek. “It’s all in the name of giving our fans once-in-a-lifetime opportunities and experiences.”
The “Definitely Over 21” event, orchestrated by public relations firm Golin, drew more than 300 residents of the 55-and-over Cypress Falls retirement village. They are, admittedly, not the bullseye demo for Hard Mountain Dew.
But a South Carolina man named Brian Anderson does represent the target audience, and he was a key figure at the party after winning the trip from the brand.
“The best part of the day has been meeting all these beautiful people, having all these conversations with wonderful people who know how to party,” Anderson says on the brand’s video, shot on a brilliantly sunny day in mid-March.