Background – the product

Lucozade Sport is an isotonic sports drink which provides carbohydrates and electrolytes to enhance hydration and help maintain performance during sport and exercise. Since its launch in 1990, the brand has led and grown the sports drink category in the UK and now has annual sales in excess of £100 million.

Business challenge

We had ambitious targets to meet in 2014 including increasing sales by 2% over the campaign.

Marketing challenge

Lucozade Sport is scientifically-proven to improve performance. However, during the 2012 Olympics the credibility of the broader sports performance category was brought into question. Key influencers began to question the effectiveness of sports products to improve performance.

Communication challenge

To improve Lucozade’s credibility among influencers, and to encourage them to influence the public. Importantly, we had to create a brand story which used data to make it believable.

The opportunity

In 2014, the nation was again preparing for a summer of sport, thanks to the FIFA World Cup in Brazil.

This was an opportunity for Lucozade – influencers and media and public would all be talking together about football. Lucozade could also leverage their long-term sponsorship with football – via the FA and England.

The Conditions Zone was a massive hit

The zone itself was an immediate success. People were attracted by the chance to get real data on their performance in these conditions.

- the zone sold out in just 2 days.

- 3337 individuals registered to get on our pitch.

- we had 1464 test subjects who sweated over 572 liters of sweat and scored 3948 goals.

Participants published our data

By creating a platform which allowed players to send a share their own stats, we created a buzzing online community. This resulted in over 300,000 social engagements.

Media influencers published our data

Our level of data and experimentation on the conditions meant we became trusted resource for journalists across the UK, driving massive PR coverage for the brand:

- on the day of the launch, we appeared across every major news channel.

- across the whole coverage we created total £30 million pounds worth of earned media, reaching over 32 million people.

- in total we had 114 pieces of coverage across the UK including 30 national print and broadcast media.

This increased credibility for Lucozade

90% of this media coverage contained positive sentiment towards Lucozade Sport in the context of the conditions. This was driven by the data - we were being authoritative and clear and proven ‘before the eyes’ of the influencers.

Our own content was very successful

Our content was seen by over 1.5 million views, and a high organic views of 20%, was attributable to the credibility and usefulness of the data.

End results on brand & sales

All this had a positive impact on the overall brand story: increase of 43% in agreement to the key equity statement “helping you perform at your best”. Lucozade Sport achieved a record summer - a 12% rise in sales.

Overview

The World Cup was going to test England to the limit. Not only because of the competition but the conditions. The national media were already talking about what pressure it would place on the players.

This was a tropical World Cup where the heat and humidity would affect players’ performance. But the media faced a ‘fact gap’: there was no data about the effects – they had to speculate.

Our strategy was to generate data to fill the ‘fact gap’, and bring it into the conversation about the team’s performance.

Gather

We created the Lucozade Conditions Zone, a building which recreated the conditions of Manaus in the UK – 32C and 76% humidity. It contained a five-a-side indoor football pitch. It was sports lab which generated data on the players. We worked with Stats Sport creating experiments to get specific pieces of data that influencers needed on the effect of the conditions.

Players were given full medical assessments to provide a baseline. During the match, data collected measured a player’s distance covered, heart rate, perceived exhaustion levels, weight loss and of course goals scored across their game. We looked at the results.

The referee was also equipped with a bespoke app which allowed him to monitor the game.

Also, a series of experiments was conducted to find answers to specific important questions.

Interpret and Harness:

Data was visualized and used in several different ways

• Personal dashboards: each player could access their own data using a tag. The data was sharable online.

• Infographics: accessible overview of key statistics with ready-to-publish comparisons for media use.

• Online films: we used the data to inspire our own creative experiments, creating films e.g. The Science of Endurance.

There were 2 stories, which needed data:

- Brand story: in 2012 data was undermining the credibility of our performance story so needed to become more credible.

- Media (football story): lack of data about conditions with the media desperately looking for the stats to make their story.

Data powered stories positioning Lucozade as an authority

1. Personal data created interest and impact in the story

People like to read and watch human stories. We made the data personal – so influencers and journalists could create engagement in their stories, and share with wider audience.

2. Overall data creating an authoritative story for the public

Created an overview of statistics which summarised the conditions. It was used to tell authoritative stories enabling the media to tell better, data-driven stories

3. Specific data on particular questions

Maintained and maximized engagement by addressing specific talking-points during the tournament. We crated experiments to answer these questions.

a. Pre-tournament

Everyone wanted to understand the conditions and challenges posed: our first film explored the Science of Brazil. Our data showed that dehydration of 2% had a significant impact on performance. We brought this to life by visualising sweat loss through pint glasses.

b. First game

We tapped into the buzz of England vs. Italy. Data showed England only had 33% of possession when the teams met at Euro 2012. Not having the ball means you have to run more leaving you exhausted. We simulated what it was like to play without the ball. We found that the level of exhaustion and heat was so serious it could have killed a player.

Data put authority and credibility in the heart of the brand’s performance story

All of this was supplied, in a transparent way, by Lucozade and 3rd party experts, reinforcing the brand’s scientific credentials and authority.