Friday, March 02, 2001

Alpha Male: C

Caffeine: My personal slogan should probably be, "Mountain Dew: It's not just for breakfast anymore." When I started my job at The Rep, one of the first campaigns I undertook was to replace Pepsi with Mountain Dew in the vending machine so I wouldn't have to continue shlepping cases of it to the office and stocking the limited fridge space.

I drink a lot of soda. Tea, too. Coffee sometimes, and frankly the opening of a Starbucks near my office has done a lot to aggravate that habit. My lifestyle depends on never permitting too much blood in my caffeinestream.

A few years ago, I was driving to Washington DC and, passing through Ohio late at night, I spotted a billboard for a new product being test-marketed in the area: Caffeine-Free Mountain Dew. I nearly veered off the road. Why?! What possible appeal could such a product have to a mass audience? It's not as though I drink that stuff for the taste, although, as lemon-flavored sodas go, it's the least offensive of the breed. Since I have not seen it on my local grocer's shelves, I can only assume the test-marketing was a failure. Rightfully so.