Commercial break
Ad: “Energizing Kenyans”
Client: Lucozade Sport – Glaxo Smithkline
Lucozade is an umbrella name for a series of Energy and Sports drinks. The original Lucozade, now called Lucozade Energy, is an energy drink containing glucose syrup and is produced by GlaxoSmithKline plc. The product was sold in a glass bottle with a Cellophane wrap until 1983, when the advertising agency Ogilvy & Mather set about rebranding Lucozade as an energy drink. Lucozade Sport is the official drink of the FA and the FA Premier League. Lucozade Sport Football also has partnerships with three of the top Premier League clubs, Manchester United FC, Arsenal FC and Liverpool FC.
Locally Lucozade Sport has run a few campaign each showing the energy you get once you take Lucozade. The original ad was quite humourous showing a guy drink Lucozade then outrun a cheetah. The second phase of the ads showed people who were doing 2 different profession like the lawyer by day, dj by night press ad.
In their new animated campaign, we start with a tired looking guy who is dragging himself on screen. He is given a Lucozade and he drinks it turning his whole body to a mass of bright orange bubbles. We see as he does different gymnastics on screen and he meets this guy whose hand is in a sling. He passes on the energy and the guy in a sling gets out of it and dances across the screen.
We see him end up next to a hospital bed and as he passes on his energy shown by the bright orange bubbles, the sick guy lying on the bed wakes up and is back to his usually whole self. The ad ends as the screen is filled with energy and we zoom out to see the lucozade bottle which opens to show the bubbles escape to form the map of Kenya. The tagline then appears “ Lucozade Sport, Energizing Kenya.”
This is a very brave ad and I should commend the brand manager at GSK for running it. It’s a different ad that uses animation to convey the message that Lucozade Sport fills you up with energy. Counting that the target audience are largely the younger, upmarket populace, this ad engages them and urges them to decipher the message. It talks to the audience rather than talking down on them, which makes them accept the message much more. I just hope more advertisers took this line with their target audiences…