The Lucozade Sport advertising campaign from 2013 featured soccer star Gareth Bale and aimed to promote the message that Lucozade hydrates and fuels athletes better than water. The campaign's £4-9 million "I Believe" slogan and social media integration was meant to reinforce Lucozade's position as a sports nutrition drink. However, the campaign's main claim was banned in early 2014 for failing to demonstrate benefits during prolonged exercise over water.

1. Lucozade Sport
Soft Drinks advertising

2. This advert draws your
attention right away with the
bright and bold colours of
yellow and blue, which also
links to the Lucozade itself.
This vibrancy of colour could
link to the energetic nature of
the Lucozade drink.
Gareth Bale is used as the main
sports star, as a role model for the
audience looking at this advert.
Children especially would want to
be like him so would copy him by
buying the drink.
This slogan is quite a bold
statement but also quite
controversial due to it saying
its better than water, although
water is the purest drink out
there.
Due to this statement being
controversial about it being
better than water, this will leave
people wanting to test this and
see if this is the case.
The other main slogan is the
‘♯IBELIEVE’. This is quite an
inspiring slogan and by having a
hashtag before it implies that
they want you to tweet about it
using the hashtag and try and
raise awareness for the drink on
social media.
Gareth Bale is at eye level with
the audience. This suggests that
he is equal to us and that by
consuming Lucozade you can
be a sports star like him.

3. History of the brand
● Lucozade is a sports drink created in the UK and sold all over Britain by
Thomas Beecham in 1927.
● It was originally called Glucozade up until 1929
● Its sales began to increase thanks to minor changes
● Then it changed from being a medicinal drink to a drink that can be used
by everyone in 1985.
● In 1987, the company decided to stick to use their new flavours for all their
drinks, orange and lemon.
● Since 2003, Lucozade has focused on keeping the brand healthy by
introducing Lucozade sport.

4. Different Lucozade advertising campaign

5. Aims of the campaign
● They used famous people such as Gareth Bale, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlin etc.
to act as role models to people looking at these adverts.
● Both Bale and Oxlade-Chamberlain are being used in the campaign to
support the claim that Lucozade Sport helps sports participants across the UK
to improve their endurance performance, by drinking the soft drink instead of
water before and during matches.
● Steven Spinola, senior brand manager at Lucozade Sport, GSK, said: "The ‘I
Believe’ campaign will bring the Lucozade Sport 'Hydrates and fuels you
better than water' claim to life and reinforce how we are combining our
scientific expertise with product innovation to help athletes across the UK and
Ireland to reach their sporting potential through nutrition."

6. Date and Time of the campaign
● The advert was first shown to the public in the week of July 30th 2013. This
was during the time that Gareth Bale, the main role model of this advert,
was pushing through a move to Real Madrid.
● A year later in the week of 8 Jan 2014 was banned because of complaints
about the claim the product hydrates you better than water. It received 63
complaints in total, including one from the National Hydration Council,
suggesting it broke advertising rules.

7. Use of social media
● A large part of the ‘I Believe’ 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 and Facebook.
This meant that advertisement for the product would spread worldwide
through the free, no cost use of social media.
● Lucozade have their own Facebook and Twitter page in order to grow
their brand and advertise their products to the millions of users daily.

8. Context
Look at the vintage ads from Lucozade.
How has advertising for Lucozade changed?

12. Lucozade - context
Created 1927 as Glucozade - meant to give energy to the sick
Renamed Lucozade in 1929
1983 rebranded as a sports drink rather than health drink
Lots of sponsorship deals with various sports

13. Lucozade Sport Campaign
Lucozade Sport is its No1 sports drink
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d08zaoMMhWA
TV campaign ‘Last Man Standing’ launched in Jan 2013 on ITV during the FA
Cup matches between Brighton and Hove Albion and Newcastle as well as
West Ham v Manchester United.
New scientific claim: Lucozade Sport hydrates and fuels you better than water.
Set in laboratory conditions, twenty four athletes go head to head in a
performance challenge - half fuelled by Lucozade Sport and half by water.
Monitored throughout by GSK scientists, the athletes run until they reach the
point of exhaustion and only participants on one team, fuelled by Lucozade
Sport, are left.

14. Campaign
£4m or £9m campaign - both claims made online. (exam board specification
thinks £4m)
Agency: Grey London
GlaxoSmithKline Consumer Healthcare - owners of Lucozade in Jan 2013
Lucozade sold to Suntory in Sept 2013 for £1.35b
Ad stars: Gareth Bale (Spurs) and Alex Oxlade Chamberlain (Arsenal)
Campaign banned in Jan 2014 by ASA as it failed to show that it only had benefit
during prolonged exercise.

15. Social Context
Social Anxieties
• The athletic and muscular bodies
represent the male obsession with
their body image thus attributing a
certain body insecurity to the target
audience
Inequalities (race)
• Range of representations?
Inequalities (gender)
• Representing both genders?
• https://www.facebook.com/ajplusen
glish/videos/1010852939056213/
OR
https://twitter.com/ajplus/status/890
122280361000960

16. Cultural Context
What do these terms mean and how are they applied?
Consumerism
• The total value of the soft drinks
market in the United Kingdom (UK) is
around £15 billion
Celebrity Culture
• Capitalising on star appeal / star as
commodity
Postmodernism
• Gareth Bale use of celebrity
• Representation of man ‘new man’

17. Task
●Every Soft drink ad seems to use colour to
attract in people.
●They also use slogans, especially humorous
slogans, to make the audience laugh and so it
stands out to audiences so they buy the drink.
●The colours used normally link with the
colour of the drink.

18. Generic Codes and Conventions
●Product dominant, centre
●Actions, using product
●Bright colours
●Match brand
●Lack of text
●Slogan
●Logo
●Use of Caucasian
●Positive mode of address / sense of humour