Lucozade

History Of The Brand

Lucozade is a sports drink created 1927 in the UK by Thomas Beecham, and is sold all over Britain.
For the first two years it was called Glucozade, a spin off from the sugar based substance 'Glucose'.
However, in 1929, the company chose to change the name to Lucozade. Due to these minor changes, sales actuall began to increase.

When the company first began, they're target audience was those who were ill, therefore Lucozade was seen and produced as a medicinal drink. However, in 1985 the drink started to be consumed by not just those who are ill, but by everyone.

The company were mainly using the flavours Orange and Lemon for all their drinks, but by the turn of the new century, they adapted to a plethra of new flavours, including: Mango and Passion Fruit, Brazilian Guava, Lemon and Lime, Caribbean Burst, Raspberry and finally their original flavour, Orange.

Since 2003, Lucozade has focused on keeping the brand healthy through the production of various forms of Lucozade which include: Lucozade Sport, Lucozade Lite, Lucozade Elite, Lucozade Sport Low Calorie and Lucozade Sport Fit Water.

Analysing The Campaign

Lucozade used famous athletes Gareth Bale and Alex Oxlade Chamberlain so they acted as role models to the 'young-ish' target audience and people looking at this adverts. These two figures would be heavily seen throughout the sporting industry, more specifically football. Therefore, it was important for Lucozade to hire two well recognisable iconic people from the sport.

Both Bale and Chamberlain are being used in the campaign to support the claim that Lucozade Sport drinks help sports participants across the UK improve their endurance performance, by drinking the soft drink instead of water. They recommend participants consume the drink before and during their sporting activities.

Steven Spinola, senior brand manager at Lucozade Sport, said: "The 'I Believe' campaign will reinforce and claim our belief that Lucozade Sport hydrates and fuels people better than water. Combining our scientific expertise with product innovation, athletes across the UK will be helped to reach their sporting potential through the consumption of Lucozade Sport."

A large part of the 'I Belive' advertisement is the integration of social media and the product. The hashtag "I Believe" was created to get the Lucozade drink trending on social media platforms Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. This mean that advertisement for the product would spread worldwide through the free, no cost use of social media. The personal pronoun, "I" makes the reader put themselves in the famous Gareth Bales shoes, making them boost their self esteem to do well and become a successful athlete. In addition, with the stern face he is pulling, the reader sees the 'want' in his eyes.

Lucozade have their own Facebook and Twitter page in order to grow their brand and advertise their products to the millions of users daily, not only in the UK and Ireland, but worldwide. On Facebook, the company has 610 thousand likes, on Twitter, nearly 45 thousand followers. And finally, newly on Instagram, 10 thousand followers.

Date of the campaign - the advert was first shown to the public on July 30th 2013. This was during the time that Gareth Bale (the main star of the advert) was pushing through a move to Real Madrid.
A year later in the week of 8th January 2014 the advert was banned because of the complaints about the product "hydrating better than water". It received a total of 63 complaints including one to the National Hydration Council, suggesting it broke advertising rules. So due to the small amount of complaints, the advert was banned.