±±¾©Èü³µpk10

Skip to table

For me, Lucozade has always been a restorative.

When I was knee-high to Ronnie Corbett and feeling a bit poorly, Mum would go and get the familiar, knobbly bottle with its bizarre, orange, crinkly plastic wrapper, while I settled down in front of Vision On, Hong Kong Phooey and The Clangers. Bless.

Then someone decided that, unfortunately, people just weren't getting ill often enough. So, rather than slip something into the nation's reservoirs, they got decathlete Daley Thompson to tell me that Lucozade was now all about giving me the energy to do energetic stuff. Clearly, they had never met me.

Ever since, I've still only bought the fizzy orange stuff when I've felt a bit poorly (yes, OK, hungover).

I don't know - or care, to be honest - what Daley Thompson's doing these days, but Lucozade is still banging on about giving me the energy to be more physically active.

Recently, it had rollerblading. Then it had a drummer, lady boxer and rapper guy, who all, as Tim Delaney would say in one of his less eloquent moments, had 'attitude coming out of their wazoos'.

Both spots clearly ticked lots of boxes. For my money, though, lots of boxes are great if I'm moving house; but if I'm after a good advertising strategy, give me one big, relevant, differentiating box any day.

So it pulled it all together to give us some cool people playing some cool music, including a cool physical activity, because of their cool, 'we can do what we like' attitude. Cool, everyone probably thought.

When it came on, I was interested. Nicely filmed. It had a guy playing guitar on a skateboard, and some genius had talked Clearcast out of insisting on helmets.

As soon as I saw the heavy hand that had put the bottle of Lucozade sticking out of his pocket, however, it had lost me. Then they used every shot they had of the giant, yellow Lucozade ad on the side of the house. Then Jack Black-alike finished his bottle of Lucozade and hurled it joyously into the air.

I couldn't buy the attitude of this band doing what they were doing. Because they weren't doing it - Lucozade was. And I just don't buy the idea that Lucozade is a brand that's about attitude.

The endline is a simple 'Yes'. A kind of 'Just do it'? Well, it can give me the energy, yes. But the attitude? Lucozade, you're not Nike. Get over it.

I wish I could say the commercial is great. Everyone involved has done a pretty good job of doing what they were asked to. I'm just not sure that they were asked to do the right thing.
Lea