Project Overview

The main purpose of “The Camo Collective” was to promote Camo Out, DEW’s ultimate camouflage-meets-wearable-tech collection with VFILES.
The three key goals for the program included:

1) Generating awareness of DEW during a cultural moment for their fans
2) Introducing Dew to a new group of consumers: men’s fashion and streetwear
3) Drive engagement with our target millennial audience in a relevant way by utilizing innovative technology.

Project Commissioner

PepsiCo

Project Creator

PepsiCo

Project Brief

Mountain DEW has always celebrated the intersection of culture, tapping into the camo trend, both traditional and through modern/reverse ways. Camo Out and “The Camo Collective” gave Mountain DEW the unique position of bringing camo to both worlds – the great outdoors and the urban street-wear culture – by integrating wearables and a first-of-its-kind augmented reality ‘Camoflector’ into a new campaign. The result was increased brand recognition in their target demographic as well as an introduction to a new group of consumers: men’s fashion and streetwear. The ROI was 450 million impressions with an estimated ad value of $8.3 million.

Project Need

Through Camo Out, Dew’s first-ever ultimate camouflage-meets-wearable-tech collaboration with Avant-minded social networking platform, VFILES, the brand saw an opportunity for DEW to own the universal story of camo in a way that has never been done before. DEW has always celebrated the intersection of culture, tapping into the camo trend, in both traditional and through modern/reverse ways. By expressing this celebration through the intersection of fashion, art, and technology, the brand told a story that highlighted camo’s past, present, and even future, while providing its audience with a novel immersive experience. This also opened up an entirely new revenue stream for DEW.

User Experience

We were pushed due to the tight-timelines of developing and progressing wearable technology. There were challenges developing the right technology and making sure the innovative wearable was functional and priced at a cost that DEW consumers would find appealing. This marked the first year of ComplexCon; we did not know what to expect in terms of audience and prime locations for foot traffic. We needed to find the right piece of content for ComplexCon that was not only engaging, but worthy of sharing for all demographics at the event – from fashion shows and video games, we landed on music videos.

Sustainability

When consumers entered The Camo Collective, they witnessed the evolution of camouflage through art, curated by Jules Gayton, a senior designer at Herschel Supply Company. Jules invited artists including Stash, a legendary graffiti artist, and emerging artists Damien Gilley and Michael Walczyck, to demonstrate camouflage through art from its original function for concealment to a tool used by creatives to express their individualized style. The final experience of Phase 1 was the future of camo, thought to be achieving full invisibility, which included augmented reality artwork and a real-life cloaking device. Record producer and DJ Nosaj Thing used music to tell the story of camo through mixes he produced specifically for the experience. After registering on tablets, participants were directed to a first-of-its-kind interactive augmented reality ‘CamoFlector,’ created by dotdotdash that used mirrors equipped with hologram-AR technology to be virtually outfitted with the Camo Out patterns and immersed into a virtual music video, before exiting into the VFILES store. CamoFlector users received a custom video to share on social and a direct link to purchase the limited edition Dew x VFILES Camo Out apparel collection, targeting those at ComplexCon but also offering special Camo Out pricing to their followers.