Lucozade: The edge

today in our lesson, we have been briefly looking at one of the longest running and most misunderstood TV campaigns ever made. Lucozade: The Edge via the website 'TellyAds'. The advert is desperately trying to reinvent the popular medical drink Lucozade, and turn it into a drink which will somehow make you better at sport despite having 'all the same ingredients' (which is obviously a complete and total lie) This advert, like the common advert, is trying to force the fact down the audiences throat that drinking Lucozade will take you from last to first in a matter of seconds! (while  also crushing the dreams of gullible teenagers who believe this will work.) It is trying to fool you into thinking the product is superior, (although it may be a nice tasting drink to some people)which i think is a common, lazy technique that should slowly disappear from the advertising industry. Although, it is smart by including 'the edge', as a way of telling the audience that the difference between first and second is an edge, which may (or may not) be achieved by Lucozade. The advert shows lots of different sporting activities, mainly ones that involve running and speed to reflect the "enhanced performance" aspect of the drink. During the final seconds of the advertisement, the bottle is shown lying sideways with the top pointing right, or, "forward" to try and represent speed and motion. This is also done with italic text at the bottom of the screen, slanting forward to represent the running involved in sport. The advert uses speed to try and explain that drinking lucozade will make you faster and therefore perform better in sporting activities.

The second Lucozade advert we looked at was the 'Lucozade aids recovery advert. A vintage advert which represents the classic (and actual) purpose of Lucozade, which is as a medical drink. The advert includes a  sick child stuck in his room, who stares longingly at his friends outside the window, (who don't really understand the fact that he's ill) wishing that he could get better and go play with them. Fortunately for him, in comes his loving mother, who has a bottle of Lucozade with her. She then pours out the bottle into a glass and gives it to her child, who instantly recovers from his unspecified illness and goes out to play with his friends. Oh the power of science! In this advert, the message is still relatively sexist, as it tries to tell its audience that the mothers role is just to make the son feel better and give him his Lucozade. The message of the advert is also telling the mothers watching this advert are not good mothers unless they give their child Lucozade, which is pretty extreme even for an advertisement.

Here is an image of the closing seconds of the advertisement, slanting the text to represent speed

Link to advert HERE