Hard Mountain Dew has put a bounty on Bigfoot, turning an impossible challenge into a promotion folks want to participate in.

A couple months ago, I wrote about Columbia Sportswear offering to hand over the company to anyone who could prove the Earth is flat by finding its edge.

I feel like somebody at Hard Mountain Dew admired the basic idea.

The alcoholic Mountain Dew brand has launched its Bigfoot Bounty, inviting Americans 21 and older to submit evidence of Sasquatch through November 30.

The headline prize is a million bucks. 

And they ain’t accepting another blurry shape behind a pine tree.

Entrants need at least four of seven forms of evidence, including an enormous footprint, a 13-inch handprint, thermal footage of a seven-to-nine-foot creature moving through the forest, unidentified hair DNA, unusual audio, environmental evidence or, best of all, a Bigfoot photobomb. 

Expedition Bigfoot producer and star Bryce Johnson helped establish the criteria. 

Here’s the less magical part.

The official rules say the $1 million grand prize is “solely for satirical, entertainment, and promotion purposes” and is not actually available to be won.

What is real is $20 for 100 randomly selected eligible entrants, roughly the price of a 12-pack. 

Ya mean the million-buck reward is a HOAX? What are you afraid of, Hard Mountain Dew?

I admit I’m a little disappointed. What if I DO stumble upon that elusive proof this weekend?

Unlike the flat-Earth challenge, where I was perfectly comfortable with nobody winning, I’ve always wanted Bigfoot to be real.

I rather like being able to fly around the planet in any direction and eventually get back where I started, exactly as my globe suggests.

But a giant undiscovered primate wandering the forests of North America? I’d be over the moon!

As marketing, though, the idea works because the prize isn’t really the whole joy.

The hunt is.

Hard Mountain Dew is giving folks a reason to get out hiking, camping, scanning the tree line, taking ridiculous photographs and telling out-of-breath stories about the weird noises they heard at 2 a.m.

The brand gets attached to the adventure whether anybody finds a Yeti or not.

That fits the product far better than a generic sweepstakes ever could. Hard Mountain Dew describes itself around bold experiences, and Bigfoot already belongs to the culture of campfires, wilderness, road trips and questionable decisions made outdoors.

Columbia’s flat-Earth stunt worked similarly. The challenge itself reinforced exploration. According to campaign reporting, “Expedition Impossible” generated an earned audience of roughly 80 million, 10 million organic views and more than 250 pieces of media coverage. 

There’s a fun product-marketing lesson here.

A good promo goes beyond prizing to give customers a role in the brand story.

One of the ideas I explore in I Need That is that people become more invested in products when they can participate rather than merely observe. A ridiculous challenge can create exactly that kind of participation, especially when the challenge itself expresses something about the product.

I’d still prefer the million bucks to be legit.

Mostly because I’m rooting for Bigfoot.

If you’d like help creating and marketing products people feel compelled to buy, the product marketing consultants at Graphos Product can help.