In February 2025, we announced the launch of our Brand Lift measurement tool Ormax Mpact. You can read more about the tool here. We will be publishing case studies across domains (sports, news, entertainment, movies, etc.) periodically, to help brands, agencies & platforms visualise Ormax Mpact in action. Read the case study on the brand placement of Bandhan Mutual Fund on India Today television channel (and its YouTube version) here. In this article, we cover the case study for Mountain Dew's new commercial featuring Salman Khan and Hrithik Roshan, which was launched during the recently-concluded ICC Champions Trophy 2025.

Important note: This case study is not funded by Mountain Dew or any associated agencies or media platforms. The data in this case study has been collected and analysed by Ormax Media at its own cost, as a part of our initiative to introduce Ormax Mpact to its potential users in the brands and media communities.

The research was conducted in the week following the ICC Champions Trophy 2025, with a sample size of 200 audiences of the tournament who have seen the ad (called the Exposed group), and 200 audiences of the tournament who have not seen the ad (called the Control group), in Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh & West Bengal. The gender and age composition of both the groups was homogenous, i.e., 65% men and 35% women, and 70% in the 18-30 yrs. age group and 30% in the 31-45 yrs. age group.

Brand Awareness

Did the ad boost the awareness for Mountain Dew?

Ormax Mpact reports awareness at three levels. TOM (Top-of-Mind) Awareness is % audiences who mentioned the brand as the first one, when asked about brands in a specific product category (Soft drinks in thie case). Spontaneous Awareness is % audiences who mentioned the brand (not necessarily first) without any prompts, when asked to name brands in the product category. Total Awareness is % audiences who recognised the brand, either spontaneously or on being prompted with the brand’s name. Total Awareness question is asked as a masked question, i.e., it is asked for a long list of brands in the category, so that the audience is not aware at any stage that the research is being conducted for a specific brand (Mountain Dew in this case). It is possible that someone who has seen the ad (Exposed group) is not aware of the brand, as the question on to classify audiences in Control and Exposed groups uses a masked (de-branded) image, with the brand name and symbols hidden.

As can be seen in the chart below, there is a significant difference in the TOM and Spontaneous Awareness for Mountain Dew between the Control and the Exposed groups. In Ormax Mpact reports, differences that are statistically significant at 95% confidence level are marked with a green alpha (α) sign, while those that are not significant are marked with a grey hyphen (-) sign. With pre-existing high Total Awareness (92%) for the brand, there was no significant increase on this parameter.

Brand Funnel

The Brand Funnel section of an Ormax Mpact report looks at three parameters, which are progressively difficult to achieve. Total Awareness has been defined above. Consideration is % audiences who indicates that they would actively consider the brand (Top 2 Boxes) for purchase or use, when evaluating options in a specific product category (Soft drinks in this case). Intent is % audiences who expressed a clear likelihood to purchase or use a brand (Top Box) in their next purchase or use in the product category.

As can be seen in the graphic above, there is a statistically significant increase at both Consideration and Intent levels of the Brand Funnel for Mountain Dew, highlighting that the ad has performed very well.

Imagery Associations

In this section, upto five brand imagery statements are cued to both the Control and the Exposed groups, to measure the % match between the statements and the brand (Mountain Dew in this case), to identify image attributes, if any, that saw a statistically significant increase in association in the Exposed group. This is the only question in the entire Ormax Mpact questionnaire where the brand being researched is directly revealed to the survey respondents, without any competitive or masked list. For that reason, this is also the last question in the questionnaire.

As can be seen in the results above, Mountain Dew saw an increase in association in two statements, related to adventure and taste, in the Exposed group. Improvement in imagery associations can be difficult to achieve, especially for established brands. In that context, the Mountain Dew ad has performed very well, to manage a signigficant increase on two key image attributes.

Note: Base for image association for both Control and Exposed groups is those aware of the brand in question.

Ad Measures

The Ad/Campaign Measures section of an Ormax Mpact report is based on data collected only from audiences exposed to the ad. This section reports two parameters for a study of the type conducted for Mountain Dew, i.e., Brand Recognition & Key Message Association.

For Brand Recognition, Exposed group audiences asked to identify the brand to which the integration belongs, from a long list of brands in the category. As can be seen in the chart below, 67% selected Mountain Dew, which is a strong result. Ormax Mpact is constantly building benchmarks on Campaign Measures that will help users of the tool compare their scores to normative data relevant to their context, such as ad format, leader vs. challenger brand,  celebrity vs. non-celebrity ad, etc.

Those who recall seeing the integration are also asked to select the brand that they can associate with the brand message or tagline (Darr Ke Aage Jeet Hai in this case). At 89%, the ad performs exceptionally well on this parameter, which is also reflective of the strength of the brand message established over the years.

Brand Performance Summary

All Ormax Mpact reports conclude with a single-page summary of the performance of the ad/campaign/integration across the various parameters covered in Ormax Mpact, such as the summary below for the Mountain Dew commercial.

If you are a brand/advertiser or a media platform who wants to explore Ormax Mpact, please fill this contact form, and we will connect with you very soon.