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| Logan native Matt Jorgensen was featured in a Mountain Dew commercial for the flavor White Out, (Jennifer Meyers/Herald Journal). |
"I tried it then, and I remember loving it ever since," said Jorgensen, who was raised in Hyde Park. "Birthdays were a special occasion, so I got to drink a lot of soda on my birthday."
It's safe to say that Mountain Dew has been a part of Jorgensen's whole life. He even had the citrus-flavored drink at his side while his wife was in labor.
Jorgensen never thought he'd be a part of helping to conceptualize, name and market a Mountain Dew flavor with a handful of other people who were just as crazy about the drink as he was.
But that's exactly what happened to the graduate researcher attending the University of Utah when Mountain Dew launched three new flavors - Mountain Dew Distortion, Mountain Dew White Out and Mountain Dew Typhoon - that were developed in partnership with consumers during the brand's DEWmocracy 2 campaign. It was a consumer-driven campaign that enabled more than 4,000 of the brand's most loyal fans - referred to as Dew Labs members - to co-create three new beverages.
Jorgensen was selected as "president of the White Out Flavor Nation," creating Facebook and Twitter pages and doing other things to get people to vote for the flavor.
"I babied it from the beginning," Jorgensen said. "As a die-hard Dew fan, I'm just really excited to be a part of the process. It also feels really good as a consumer to be listened to. They've taken listening to a completely new level."
Jorgensen joked that there's a certain lingo between Mountain Dew drinkers like himself that non-Mountain Dew drinkers might not understand - so he explained how he feels about the drink in layman's terms.
"I would drink a regular Mountain Dew before I went out and did something really big and exciting, like ride a bike off a big jump," Jorgensen said. "Then I'd drink a White Out when I'm chillin' at home with AC on later thinking about how awesome it was."
Jorgensen helped film the Mountain Dew commercial, "Here's to the loud." Jorgensen, of Salt Lake City, appears at the end of the commercial to hold up one of the newest flavors of the popular soda drink.
"Dew fans across America, your voice has been heard," the announcer said. "A new flavor of Mountain Dew."
For the commercial, Mountain Dew hand-selected a group of "Dew All-Stars" from across the country, each representing one of the seven flavors to celebrate its Back by Popular DEWmand program. The program is meant to promote many re-releases of old Mountain Dew favorites. Jorgensen was selected as the All-Star for Mountain Dew White Out.
The film crew also shot Jorgensen at a party that the company threw for him in Logan at his father's house. The film shows Jorgensen meeting up with friends there before they go downtown with cell phones and cameras on a "scavenger hunt." Shots of the Wells Fargo Bank and Zions Bank can be seen.
