By Malay Desai
From: UK by Grey Digital
A new campaign for energy drink Lucozade talks of finding one’s rhythm and keeping it. Its film shows regular workers such as a window-cleaner, a librarian, a kebab shop chef etc. doing their tasks with super-fast moves, all shot in slow-motion. These also include impossible things such as fixing a tyre of a moving car and making books fly. On social media, the brand put up candid videos of people doing seemingly impossible stuff with ease such as sorting letters, speed-parking and throwing slices in a toaster. In its OOH campaign, the brand speaks to commuters, asking them to grab the drink and find their flow.
Why we like ?
If I asked you to list energy drinks five years ago, you’d have only mentioned the one that gives you wings. Now, there are half-a-dozen more. In the UK, the clutter occurred much earlier and with a young TA that’s definitely as much into playing sports as we are into ‘watching’ cricket, Lucozade’s message had to be sharp and catchy.
‘Flow – the unmistakable feeling of unstoppable’, the film begins, the copy getting more powerful as it rolls out. If the agency had followed conventions and ‘safe idea lists’, it could have gone with fast-paced visuals of rivers, cheetahs, sprinters… even stuff like trains and ballet dancers. But Lucozade, first manufactured in 1927 by a Newcastle chemist for the sick and now a prized brand of a Japanese holding company, couldn’t go the ‘wings’ or any other been-there way.
The heroes of the film are common folks who achieve flow, a rhythm in their day. They are workers with uninteresting lives – a librarian, a window cleaner et al, but they are made to do superhuman things, thanks to the secret potion. The 60-second film progressively goes from ‘regular exciting’ to ‘wow’ and ‘WTF’ and thanks to a thumping background score and a misplaced yet recall-worthy voiceover, makes an impact. Perhaps the ‘serious’ tone balances the otherwise whacked out idea.
It must have weighed in from market research, but there are two commuters in the film, and the OOH campaign too presses upon the ‘on the go’ touch point. In an urban market with hushed routines and tiny attention spans, this targeting works.
The defining factor for the ‘flow’ message to have flown is the retro, dual coloured theme of the campaign. With yellow-and-red as primary and other combinations to supplement, the design is simple and eye-catching. I had loved Frooti’s New York agency for similar work in the brand’s revamp in March; this is at par.
Back in Mumbai, I hear of an ‘Enerzal’, another energy drink waiting to compete with Red Bull, Monster, Cloud 9 and Urzza. Here’s hoping they find their flow.
(To watch this commercial, enter ‘bit.ly/ViewTubeAug24’ in your browser or to check out the agency’s OOH campaign, search for ‘greyldn’ on Instagram)
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