Andy Baker teamed up with BBDO NY to create a monumental summer campaign for MTN DEW. Celebrating the entire U.S. of A., they developed an ambitious scope of work by creating 50 individual animated films for each state along with one cohesive national spot. In addition to the films, the "DEWnited States Collection" includes special bottle packaging illustrating the singular identity of each state. Gotta collect them all!
The design needed to capture the edgy identity of the MTN DEW brand with bold colors and even bolder characters. It also needed to capture the wildly diverse identity of the United States in a unifying way. The imagery had to be busy but intentional; chaotic but controlled; wild, fresh, and fun but deliberately functional.
The biggest challenge for this campaign was figuring out how to fit 50 states into 15 seconds for the main TV spot. The solution? Instead of using exact geographies in the main fly over, the characters from various states would interact and co-exist in a psychedelic stream of controlled chaos.
An endless camera move with the mandate of 50 states in 15 seconds is not easy to pull off. Achieving legibility at that speed in that short amount of time with a limited color palette of mostly green with some minor accents of red, black, and white, well… the designers had their work cut out for them. But they delivered in spades.
"Making 51 animations is mad. It takes a massive effort. But when you have a dedicated team and an agency that really gets you, it makes the whole process really enjoyable."
-Andy Baker
