Lucozade Research:

In Newcastle in 1927 Thomas Beecham created Lucozade. That name actually started out as Glucozade but in 1929, two years after its initial creation the G was removed from the name and it became Lucozade.  He branded it as a drink for those who were ill and so the main ingredient was glucose syrup which was a source of energy. 

The old advertisement for Lucozade shows a young boy who is sick in his room. He is looking out the window longingly at his friends who are playing in the back garden. His mum then comes in with Lucozade and after having some the boy feels much better and his friends all come into his room and they all start to play together. This advert shows that being ill is really boring and depressing however if you have Lucozade not only will you feel better but you will be able to have fun because you have more energy. The drink was aimed at invalids: people who were sick with a cold etc. the boy started out ill and wishing he was playing with his friends and after drinking the Lucozade his friends all joined him in his room to play and he didn’t feel so alone anymore. 

It also is aimed at mums. When a child is ill your parents are the ones who look after you and because in the 1920’s and 30s men would work and women would, in most cases, look after the ill child, this meant that it would eat away at a lot of the mums time. So the drink was also aimed at stay at home mums because it implies that looking after your sick child ‘takes a lot out of you’ so by buying Lucozade and making your child better you will be able to do the things you need to do.

The music that is used is a very cheerful and upbeat. Because it includes phrases like: ‘the best thing about getting better is Lucozade’, really giving a very cheerful happy vibe to the advert. It is trying to show the positives of being sick and not focus on the negatives. 

But sadly in the 1970s the illness rates went down and so the need for Lucozade did too. The company was losing lots of money and they had to think fast. Re-branding looked like the only option so in 1982 they changed Lucozade from a drink that aids recovery to ‘Lucozade replaces lost energy’, therefore turning it into a sports, energy drink. The Lucozade bottle had been originally a big glass bottle with a yellow cellophane wrap around it. When shifting its focus from the ill to the sporty they changed the bottle to a plastic one and made the bottle smaller. 

It was a great idea because there was a large market for it. In 1985 an advert was made with Daley Thompson. The advert had Daley Thompson and showed that with Lucozade you could have the energy of an Olympic athlete (Daley Thompson). The new branding of the drink was aimed to fit, healthy people who played sports or did athletic activities. As most people participate in sport, went to the gym or needed more energy, the re-branding of Lucozade was very successful. 

The advert showed Daley Thompson drinking Lucozade and then his amazing athletic performance while running. The advert is basically saying that by having Lucozade you can be the best you can be at whatever you choose to do (most likely sports). By having such a well-known and popular sports person to be the face of this specific Lucozade advert meant that the advert would get noticed by a lot of different people. Sports professionals would want to keep getting better at their specific field, sports armatures would want to get a good foundation and start off in their chosen sport. People who have nothing to do with sports and just need energy for a tiring day etc might want to buy Lucozade too. People who are fans of Daley Thompson would probably buy the drink to be like him. Also because they did use Daley Thompson it is saying in a way that if you have Lucozade you will run like him which really compels people to buy it. 

The music that is used in the advert is very powerful, energizing rock and roll style music. The music throughout is building so that by the end there is a huge revitalizing and invigorating feeling as you watch Daley Thompson run in slow motion. The power in the music added with the power that Thompson is showing while running really makes the advert memorable and easily noticed.

Lucozade also began to come out with many different flavors and matching colored packaging to the flavor. This attracted even more people and the drink really stood out on the shelf. Lucozade quickly became extremely popular and in five years sales tripled meaning an incoming balance of around £75million. Lucozade has changed a lot since it was first made however the main concept has still not: energy.