'I Believe' Lucozade Campaign

How does the Lucozade 2013 ‘I Believe’ Campaign us Media Language to promote the brand?

The Lucozade 2013 ‘I Believe’ Campaign uses Media Language to promote the Lucozade brand. The different uses of Media Language promote the brand to be highly influenced by sports and fitness and therefore, attracts people who are interested in these topics.

Overtime people’s views towards health changed which made the initial purpose for the Lucozade drink be rethought. As the sporting industry was growing people were becoming more interested in it and wanting to be like they ‘sporting legends’ of the time. This meant changing their lifestyles to be able to relate to the ‘legends’ and potentially be able to look like them. The 1980’s rebrand of Lucozade changed the perception of Lucozade forever. Because the sporting industry was becoming increasingly popular, the purpose of Lucozade was changed from a drink from rehydrating the ill into a sports drink. Along with the purpose of the product changing, the packaging was also changed from glass-looking like a medication- to plastics, a more sport friendly material. The drink also started to be sold in a variety of shops to increase attraction rather than just in pharmacies, suggesting that it was still medicine and not a sports drink.

As a result of the growing sporting industry, the Lucozade advertising had to change to help the brand ‘fit in’ more. The adverts and posters for Lucozade at the time we still presenting the drink as a medical and healing drink, rather than a fitness one. For the ads and posters to become more popular, Lucozade started to use Celebrity Endorsement to promote the brand. The first memorable use of this was the 1988 Lara Croft ‘Larazade’ advert. At the time Lara Croft-Tomb Raider- was a very popular video game so when this advertisement and poster was revealed the majority of the Lara Croft audience and players were automatically attracted to them because it was something they could relate to and enjoy. This relation to the product made the audience go and buy the product which increased sales dramatically.

The 2013 ‘I Believe’ campaign, like the ‘Larazade’ advertisements, used celebrity endorsements to promote the Lucozade brand. By featuring Gareth Bale as a part of the Campaign a large attraction towards the product was instantly created. In 2013, Gareth Bale was one of the most popular and well-known players at the time, playing for Tottenham Hotspurs, a well know London team, so having him feature on one of the posters helped the brand immensely. The celebrity encourages different football fans of all ages to buy the product as it makes them feel more like Bale or on a wider scale, any of their favourite footballers. The use of Bale on the poster makes people realise that it's not just a product for the average people, the drink is bought and used, by the ‘legends’ that some of these people look up to. The colours on the poster all correlate to the colours of the Lucozade bottle itself. By doing this, the Lucozade colours and brand is always being drilled into the audiences’ heads and setting a constant reminder that, when they see these colours elsewhere, they’ll think of the brand and want to go and purchase it. By keeping the poster relatively minimal the key aspects of it are highlighted successfully as there is nothing to take the attention away so all eyes are constantly on the key images of Bale and the Lucozade bottle.