Zlaten del Castillo, Veronica Watson Kuc

Mountain Dew: Raid

‘Mountain Dew Raid shows us new ways humans and AI can team up, which we never really thought possible a couple of years back. Streamers can now get a boost from AI in a fair way to team up with brands and reap the rewards, without having to worry about hitting high viewership numbers.’

Zlaten Del Castillo, Creative Director, UNIT9

The background

Mountain Dew, known for its bold flavours and gaming community, wanted to find a unique way to reward and elevate up-and-coming Twitch streamers. They saw an opportunity to leverage technology to create a dynamic experience, organically boost streamer visibility and grow their audiences – so we set to work on making it a reality.

The execution

We created Mountain Dew Raid, an innovative initiative leveraging Artificial Intelligence. Using a smart crawler, we scanned all active Twitch gaming streams, seeking out one specific element on camera feeds: the presence of Mountain Dew. Streamers with Mountain Dew products visible on camera were invited to join the Raid, opting into a program that could provide them with the tools to grow their audiences on Twitch.

We built a custom AI model from a synthetic dataset of game screenshots and Mountain Dew images. Due to the plethora of flavours, subtle branding differences (MTN DEW vs. Mountain Dew), and tiny logo appearances on 60×60 pixel patches, we had to fine-tune the AI to be extra specific.

Scanning thousands of Twitch streams in real-time required innovation and creativity. So, we distributed the load across 50 GPU-powered virtual machines, enabling logo detection within two minutes with minimal false positives. The machines constantly monitored 10,000 streams, rotating “Dew-less” streams for fresh data.

Unlike traditional sponsorships, Mountain Dew Raid offered streamer-centric rewards and incentives for them to join the RAID, from gaining coveted spots on the Mountain Dew Gaming Channel, to unlocking one-on-one coaching sessions with experienced content creators and providing access to a community of like-minded streamers.

The results

After scanning an average of 400,000 unique streamers per day, we were able to spotlight Mountain Dew’s biggest fans on the brand’s Gaming Twitch channel – a group who were rewarded for their brand loyalty rather than their streaming figures.

This project showcases just one of the diverse uses that AI will have in shaping our interactions within the digital space. So many possibilities are currently under exploration, generating conversations around real-world case studies just like these. Taking a leading role in these advancements positions brands to actively contribute to and become part of the narrative.