Lucozade’s advertisement „Energy beats everything” shows how David defeated Goliath after drinking the energy drink. Lucozade Energy drink’s purpose is to improve performance and endurance and the ad is presenting its effect. David is holding Lucozade’s energy drink in his hand which shows how a weak person can win a combat with someone stronger than him. The advertisement’s goal is to make customers’ feel like they can do greater things after consuming their product and the scene encourages people to think that it can help them become better.
The commercial's main purpose then is to build brand recognition and support the advertiser’s image. According to Capitol Outdoor (2016, 5), for example when we look at Coca Cola, it became so popular that people refer to every soft drink as „Coke”. Lucozade is trying to achieve the same result by using many techniques of persuasive advertisement.
Lucozade is a company within the cold drinks market and since its launch, Lucozade has been the market leader in the energy drink category (Campaign, 2004).
Lucozade’s advertisement „Energy beats everything” is a funny twist on the well-known David and Goliath story from the Bible. As not everyone may be familiar with it, Mary Fairchild (Thoughtco, 2018) presents the story, David was a young shepherd who decided to challenge a giant named Goliath to a fight to save his lineage from slavery. The giant was defeated just with a sling, and a pouch full of stones, because David trusted in God to help him.
The advertisement is a parody on the Bible’s tale, which is presented in a funny way. In the ad the David’s victory is achieved thanks to Lucozade Energy Drink. The campaign depicts how David grows in confidence after consuming Lucozade Energy. There is a strong message being conveyed in this advert showing how people can profit from consuming Lucozade Energy. When Metzler et al (2000) studied the impact of message variables on HIV social marketing, he proved that teenagers were more likely to be persuaded by a strong messages with striking images rather than they were by weaker messages. Therefore there is high possibility target market will be affected by the campaign positively and will be more likely to purchase the product being advertised.
David symbolises the energy of a young man that the brand wants to be linked with. It makes then people want to associate with the brand so they feel persuaded to purchase their product.
The campaign uses emotional appeal to reach the target market. People want to identify with the character and to test the impossible. The commercial makes people feel powerful emotions as it stimulates one’s curiosity. The fact that David defeated Goliath is hard to believe and pretty amazing that it produces a feeling of hope in the viewer that they can experience life and accomplish their goals. As Judith Williamson (2002) states, advertisement must take into consideration not only looking at the product we sell, if its attributes and qualities are good enough, but also if those properties mean something to the target market. As the audience already knows Lucozade Energy, there needs to be something else to encourage them to purchase the product and this is exactly the feeling people get to experience.
Using the Bible’s story is a very clever move applied in this campaign. It is using reminder advertising- people already know the story so it makes them believe in the campaign more and gets their attention way more easily. There is a lot of reasons why advertisers would use it and main one in this case is that people are already familiar with the story. They contain sweeping, but relatively straightforward, narratives of good versus evil, and feature miracles.
The advertisement’s strapline „Energy Beats Everything” can be compared to the biblical version, in which David relies on the Jewish God to give him strength and save him. It catches people’s attention, shows how David overcomes the odds to beat Goliath, proves that when one’s determined, his energy can beat everything.
Lackoff and Johnson argue that ''the essence of metaphor is understanding and experiencing one kind of thing in terms of another” (Lackoff and Johnson 1980, 5). There are the subconscious elements, the deeper meanings and emotions that some products awake, which influence our decisions to buy or not to buy. Metaphor is one way to do it and in the advert we can recognise one. The bottle of Lucozade David is holding in his hand is enlightened, like it it something divine. It has a link with the Bible’s version of the story, where David’s victory was achieved with God’s bounty and his trust. This is a metaphor used in a clever way showing that Lucozade Energy has similar, if not the same, influence on people as it had on the main character of the commercial.
As Kennedy once said, advertising is giving people „a reason why” they should purchase a product and it is a very simple thing. He would explain it as a „salesmanship in print”. (See Cruikshank and Schulz, 2013). The advertisement with Lucozade Energy gives target market a chance to experience something exceptional by giving them opportunity to feel like a champion getting supernatural help from above.
The colours used in this campaign are mainly orange and brown, just like the original colour of the drink. It is a great connection with the brand itself, people associate Lucozade Energy with orange colour so it makes them instantly think of Lucozade when looking at the advertisement. Orange is dynamic colour itself and it sparks more controversy than any other colour. It can encourage people’s attitude to be more energetic so they keep thinking about the commercial afterwards bringing positive effect on the target market.
According to Campaign (2005, 36) Lucozade has always been a trusted brand that people have relied on when they needed energy. People recognise the brand by their logo, which can be easily spotted when looking at the campaign. It is a very bold brand, with an independence of spirit so as a result, consumers are left with a warmth of feeling for the brand, not something that typically would be associated with the energy drink industry. The logo itself is a symbol used to recognise the brand and spread awareness among the potential consumers.
The advertisement’s strongest attribute is that it is persuasive in emotional way, using Bible is also an important aspect here. People want to become better in a short time period and that campaign makes them feel like they can. Nevertheless, the humorous spin on the well-known David and Goliath tale may be offensive to some who believe that it is not appropriate to use Bible as an inspiration in advertising.
The advertisement is very clear and understandable and conveys a strong message of what it represents- energy. The Millward Brown researchers emphasize that great advertising executions must tell great stories with brands as the heroes.
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