[6] In August 1964, the Mountain Dew brand and production rights were acquired from Tip by the Pepsi-Cola company, and the distribution expanded across the United States and Canada.

As of 2017, Mountain Dew represented a 6.6% share of the carbonated soft drinks market in the U.S.[12] Its competition includes the Coca-Cola Company's Mello Yello and Surge, and Keurig Dr Pepper's Sun Drop; Mountain Dew accounted for 80% of citrus soft drinks sold within the U.S. in 2010.

[14] Originally a 19th-century slang term for whiskey, especially Highland Scotch whisky,[15] the Mountain Dew name was trademarked for the soft drink in 1948.

[2] Charles Gordon, who had partnered with William Swartz to bottle and promote Dr. Enuf, was introduced to Mountain Dew when he met the Hartman brothers on a train and they offered him a sample.

Gordon and the Hartman brothers subsequently made a deal to bottle Mountain Dew by the Tri-Cities Beverage Corporation in Johnson City, Tennessee.

[17] In 1999, the Virginia legislature recognized Tip Corporation president Bill Jones and the town of Marion for their role in the history of Mountain Dew.

Using it as the name for the soda was originally suggested by Carl E. Retzke at an Owens-Illinois Inc. meeting in Toledo, Ohio,[19] and was first trademarked by Ally and Barney Hartman in the 1940s.

The first sketches of the original Mountain Dew bottle labels were devised in 1948 by John Brichetto, and the representation on product packaging has changed at multiple points in the history of the beverage.

[32][33] A fourth eight-week production run began in March 2011, before becoming a permanent addition to the Mountain Dew flavor line-up, until being discontinued again during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Labelled "Hard Mtn Dew", the drinks were initially sold in Florida, Iowa and Tennessee,[38] before expanding to other states.

[43] The campaign has been the subject of recognition within the advertising industry,[44] cited as one of the earliest and longest-running examples of a consumer product brand employing crowdsourcing to make decisions which are traditionally made internally by employees.

[46] Television advertisements at the time featured actor Forest Whitaker asking people to decide the next new flavor of Mountain Dew.

[58] The announcement gave a planned release date of October 2011 and stated that the packaging would feature codes granting players double experience points in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3.

In August 2013, Mountain Dew announced that Game Fuel would be returning to stores in the fall of 2013, with a new blueberry-flavored version titled "Electrifying Berry".

In October 2015, Game Fuel returned with a new companion flavor, Berry Lime, for the promotion of Call of Duty: Black Ops III.

Then, in October, Game Fuel was released with the Titanfall 2 promotion, with a lower calorie version of the original citrus cherry variant returning alongside the new Mango Heat.

Green Label is an online magazine, a partnership between Mountain Dew and Complex Media producing sponsored content covering action sports, music, art and style, housed at Green-Label.com.

[69] This initial series marked the first use of the term Green Label Art to describe the use of artistic works on Mountain Dew packaging.

[72] Approximately one million votes were submitted by the conclusion of the contest in October of the same year, with Street Science Skate Shop – a store in Tracy, California – named the winner of a cash prize.

In December 2010, a Mountain Dew Code Red television advertisement was produced, incorporating the hip-hop artist Jay Electronica performing his song "The Announcement".

In December 2008, Mountain Dew produced a 30-minute television special which documented independent gamers in Japan and the U.S., which aired on the Spike TV network.

On 7 January 2011, Mountain Dew posted on their Facebook that Pitch Black would return to the shelves in May 2011, also stating that this may be the start of many re-releases of old favorites.

About a month before the planned release date, a photo was posted on a Mountain Dew worker's Pongr, which showed Pitch Black and 2008's Supernova.

The promotion was infamously hijacked by users, particularly those originating from the imageboard and 4chan, who submitted and upvoted entries such as "Hitler did nothing wrong", "Diabeetus", "Fapple", "Bill Cosby Sweat", "Jimmie Rustle's Jumpin' Juice", and numerous variations of "Gushing Granny".

Adweek compared the incident to another recent campaign hijacked under similar circumstances, where musician Pitbull was sent to perform in Kodiak, Alaska, in a Walmart promotion.

[90][91][92] On 7 February 2016, for Super Bowl 50, Mountain Dew aired a spot featuring a CGI character dubbed "the puppy monkey baby" (also styled PuppyMonkeyBaby).

According to iSpot.tv, the spot was rated #1 of all the Super Bowl commercials of the night, having generated 2.2 million online views and 300,000 social media interactions after airing.

[93] The ad features a computer-generated mash-up of three things that the public generally finds to be cute or harmless; a Pug puppy (the head), a monkey (the body and tail), and a dancing baby (the hips and legs).

Melissa Cronin of Gawker described it as a "horror-hallucination of brand awareness",[94] while noting the beverage itself contains brominated vegetable oil, a chemical that is banned in several countries.

[98] In the musical Be More Chill, green Mountain Dew activates the "squip", a tiny super-computer in a pill that tells the user what to do, in order to help them achieve their goals.