Media Language and Representation: Lucozade Advert

OCR Spec.

•The Lucozade ‘I believe’ campaign poster from 2013 was part of a £4m mass market campaign to educate consumers about how the soft drink brand can help improve people’s sports performance, and features footballer Gareth Bale as a key brand ambassador.

•Consideration should be made of media language elements specific to advertising and marketing such as locations, costumes, props, makeup, lighting, choice of camera shot, angle, typography, layout and address of written content to the audience.

Isotonic drinks contain similar concentrations of salt and sugar as is found in the human body. These drinks quickly replace fluids and electrolytes lost through sweating and give a boost of simple carbohydrate.

 Lucozade used to be marketed as a medical or healthy product which could help with sickness or lack of energy. Instead of celebrity endorsements, there were medical endorsements which assured people that medical professionals used the drink whenever it was needed. 'Refreshes and sustains' is a glittering generality used on most of these posters to promote it. It was referred to as a 'glucose' drink as part of its brand which can be beneficial in terms of medical advertising as it is a scientific term which is arguably medical or nutritional jargon (technical term). It essentially just refers to sugar so in this way it is arguably similar as it was still an energy drink as it is now. There may arguably be a guilt trip technique here as people associate the product with wellness and therefore want their children to get better by drinking lucozade.




Techniques in Video advert to sell Lucozade (rebranding 1998)

• working class representation
• 1960's setting
• bikers and masculinity 
• dialect is informal (not rp)
• young people (embarrassing mum)
• personal identity needs
• Britain colours at the end may make it patriotic 'made in britain'
• Lucozade fire packaging 
• comedy
• peripheral advertising by emotional appeal 

Techniques in Video advert to sell Lucozade (2013)

• 'construction of real tests'
• glittering generalities 'better than water'
• sport
• men 
• claiming that lucozade soirt is better for exercise and proved
• the advert was banned for these claims that it 'fuels better than water'
• Kinvara Carey, general manager of the Natural Hydration Council, said the ruling would help to clarify the significant "confusion" over sports drinks claims. "There is already much confusion over the role of sports drinks, and for the majority of people participating in exercise and sporting activities water is all that is needed for effective hydration," she said. "The majority of sports drinks contain calories and may only have a positive contribution to make to professional athletes and those participating in high-intensity, endurance activity."

REPRESENTATION

This seems to predominantly aimed at males with only one female advert - which seems like a 'token' in order to prove that they are not a sexist brand. This could also be argued in terms of race, as the majority of the models/athletes in these posters are white. Despite this, it seems Lucozade have tried to have a variety of representation, but their posters are reflective of society in that they are using popular athletes and unfortunately this is predominantly white. Despite this they are all similar in age range which is young adult, therefore this likely will appeal to aspiring young people who want to be athletes. This conforms to 'personal identity' needs (Bulmer and Katz) as well as the aspirer. It is clear that this doesn't represent disabled people as they are all active, which may cause insecurity. In terms of class it isn't clear in the poster adverts however it could be assumed that as a result of a branded drink, it would be people of middle class. According to McRobbie, males are presented stereotypically as they are arguably strong, masculine and sporty. It could also be argued that they are also a countertype as the female advert doesn't show her as stereotypically feminine or weak. It attempts to appeal to logical audience through advertising as it claims there are scientific evidence. However, there is a large amount of emotional response in regards to associating the product with certain ideas, such as strength. The focus on the face is sharp which emphasises the focus of the 'game face'. We can only assume the athlete's sexuality based on stereotypes however it is not entirely clear - though mainstream audience would most likely assume heterosexual. In terms of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, the advert pretends to be a basic need such as food or water though we know it actually fits as an esteem need. 

Conventions


These are some examples of other energy drink adverts. A lot are blue and bright which can relate to the colour psychology of blue relating to intelligence, trust and men. It makes the product reliable and sometimes masculine. The drinks are usually edited larger and as a separate layer which makes the advert more surreal rather than just a picture of a model holding the drink.




Conventions of these adverts possibly include
Complementary colours (bright) saturated
An enlarged image of the product itself
Capital letters in anchorage
Blue sometimes?
New adverts are mostly sanserif 
Direct mode of address 
Simplistic