“A Powerful Underclaim”
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“A POWERFUL UNDERCLAIM” APG Creative Planning Awards Submission 2007-05-30 Client: Lucozade Sport Agency: M&C Saatchi Communications Author: Richard Storey Category: Established product brands (over £3M) Word Count: 1,855 200 word Summary The culture and language of advertising is rooted in exaggeration, with talk of amplifying competitive advantage, exploding out propositions, extending brand equities and expanding markets. This case bucks that convention by converting a huge performance claim into an infinitessimal underclaim. We inherited an impressive and rigorously justified fact: drinking Lucozade Sport improves top athletes' endurance by a whopping 33%. But sceptical consumers felt this was a bit of a whopper - at odds with the reality and psychology of sport. To find a more credible expression of our brand's contribution to success, we interrogated some professionals, amongst them Jonny Wilkinson, Steven Gerrard and triathlon legend Tim Don. We learned about the tiny margin that separates glory from disappointment and the psychological importance of any possible advantage that secures it. From that we made a critical deduction: By aligning our brand to this slender margin, the smaller the difference it claimed to make, the more people would want it. We reduced our claim to a single word - edge. Creatively, we quite literally equated the winning margin to a bottle of Lucozade Sport. In sales terms this tiny claim proved much more powerful. The Full Paper The overclaim business “Advertising’s function is to make the worse appear the better” George Santayana “The skill of the strategist is to unearth a proposition that speaks of more than just marginal product superiority. The skill of the creative team is to magnify this further.” How to Plan Advertising “A tension is now apparent for advertisers: whether to hyperbolize and reframe claims or merely ‘package attractively’ those same claims.” Laurence Green, Advertising Works 15 “In the world of advertising, there’s no such thing as a lie. There’s only expedient exaggeration” Cary Grant (in North by Northwest) “The World’s Favourite Airline” British Airways 1983 – 2003 It’s what we do. We exaggerate, emphasise, overclaim. We make things that are slight look significant. HG Wells called it ‘legalized lying’. The IPA‘amplifying competitive advantage’. The BACC prefers ‘clearly understood hyperbole’. Either way, it’s why Peugeot claimed to be ‘The drive of you life’, Carlsberg is ‘probably the best lager in the world’ and every incarnation of Gillette razor offers ‘man’s best ever shave’ or similar. This is the story of how we achieved the exact opposite, taking a huge claim and reducing it to something infinitesimal and marginal. And in so doing, we magnified its power several fold. The Huge Claim The brand is Lucozade Sport. Lucozade became a marketing legend by repositioning a drink for sick people into one that helps people stay well. A sport product was an obvious extension. After Daley Thomson and his legendary lunchbox, John Barnes explained that ‘Isotonic means it gets to your thirst. Fast’. But Lucozade Sport’s growth really kicked off when it switched its message to endurance. Planner Uses Sales Graph in APG Awards Shock Lucozade Sport Sales (£m) endurance isotonic 2000 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2001 2002 2003 GlaxoSmithKline scientists satisfied the British Medical Journal and BACC that; ‘When games players drink an isotonic sports drink such as Lucozade Sport whilst exercising, fatigue is delayed, and they are able to run for 33% longer than when consuming a water placebo.’ Influence of ingesting a carbohydrate-electrolyte solution on endurance capacity during intermittent high-intensity shuttle running, Journal of Sports Sciences 1995 Improves top athletes’ endurance by 33% was a marketing person’s dream - motivating, justifiable, quantifiable, with a nice round number to help it stick. Four years of advertising through Ogilvy followed. The thinking was sound. A coach became the brand spokesperson, shouting the 33% claim at exhausted celebrity sportspeople to improve their performance. Signs of Fatigue The claim was powerful and for a time sales raced ahead. But in 2003 fatigue set in. Whilst strong rationally, the brand wasn’t rated as gutsy, sweaty or adrenaline-fueled. It didn’t seem to ‘get’ sport, like Nike, Adidas and (crucially) Gatorade in the US. We were appointed to address this and immediately spotted a glaring problem. Research showed that the 33% claim had lost ‘new news’ status and lost all credibility. When people thought about it, 33% was ridiculous. “Do you see Michael Owen running 33% faster?” “So I can play 90 minutes plus extra time, neck a bottle of Lucozade, then carry on fresh as a daisy for an extra thirty minutes, when everyone else is dropping like flies?” “Drink Lucozade and do the 100 metres in about 6 seconds!” M&C Saatchi qualitative No matter how robust the science, the spirit didn’t gel with the reality and psychology of sport. With half an eye on Nike, we sought to align the claim with real sporting aspirations, which we glibly identified as winning. Triple Whammy Two other problems emerged. With the exception of some well informed elite sportspeople, the product was consumed after sport, to quench thirst. Importantly, this didn’t allow the product to perform (slaking thirst after exercise was something any drink - even water - could do). Increased endurance only really works when people fuel themselves up before hitting the pitch. We needed to get into people’s kit bags as a premeditated choice; part of their preparation. Our third problem was sugar. People suspected the product was just a glorified sugar rush. Consuming highly calorific carbohydrates was anathema to finely tuned athletic frames or casual Saturday morning joggers looking to shed a pound or two. GlaxoSmithKline’s scientific explanation of carbohydrate supplementing a body’s glycogen levels was as impenetrable to the average sportsman as it was impressive to boffins with science degrees. Our translation was to describe the contents of the bottle as ‘body fuel’. So, flipping the three problems, we’d arrived at a nice neat solution. The Nice Neat Solution We simply (and somewhat smugly) summarised the answer as; THE STRATEGIC FLIP After Preparation Sugar Fuel 33% Win Two years of advertising flowed from this chart, under the thought of ‘Are you ready?’. Focusing on preparation rituals of top sportspeople and enthusiastic amateurs alike, we highlighted the physical and psychological importance of being well prepared, claiming Sport was an essential part of the groundwork behind success. Must do better Always stretching to improve our performance, one thing troubled us; winning. We knew it was critical. “Winning’s not the most important thing. It’s the only thing.” 1930s UCLA coach Henry ‘Red’ Saunders (Now appropriated by most agency New Business Directors) But our work didn’t really show winning. It showed struggling. Reveled in discomfort. Celebrated getting there and only hinted at crossing the line. Overclaim was the problem once again. With qual consistently warning against suggesting it was a magic wand that guaranteed victory, we had to claim to help you win. But within that simple word lay our conundrum: Just how much help could we credibly claim? 33% was too much. Anything less risked feeling … well, less, really. We needed a strong stance on our role in other people’s success. We sought professional help. Professional Respondents We turned to Team Lucozade Sport, a collection of sporting big names Lucozade sponsor as their engagement programme for elite sportspeople, trainers and managers. Over many months, we were lucky enough to interrogate a list of sporting big-wigs that makes the average BC1C2 sample in Cheam and Solihull look decidedly humdrum. The brilliance of Fast Track, GSK’s sponsorship agency is acknowledged and much appreciated here. Research Sample Michael Owen Football legend Liverpool James Cracknell Rowing legend Henley Jason Queally Cycling legend Lancaster Tim Don Triathlon legend London Steven Gerrard Football legend Liverpool Johnny Wilkinson Rugby legend Newcastle Helen Reeves Canoeing Legend GB Canoeist Jurgen Grobler Chief Trainer GB Rowing squad Dave Reddin Fitness Coach England Rugby Dave Bedford London Marathon Race Director London Tony Strudwick Fitness Coach Blackburn Wandere David Faulkner Performance Director England Hockey Accompanied training sessions were particularly illuminating. Somehow there was great interest from certain members of the team in watching Michael Owen break sweat, whereas I was the only sucker cycling along a cold, dark, drizzly Henley towpath at 6am. Funny that. Interrogating Victory Our discussion guide was ‘winning’. We discussed what it takes, physically and psychologically, what it feels like, how you prepare for it, hope for it, and occasionally don’t achieve it. All gripping stuff. Particularly when dissecting belief. Asked about the mentality behind winning, our professionals asserted that what mattered was not soft hope, but hard conviction. “If you know you can do it, you can do it. If you don’t, you won’t.” “There are only two things to worry about in this sport - pain and doubt.” “I may not always win. But I always play believing I will.” This made us rethink the brand’s role. We’d always seen Sport as a performance brand, but realised it could be most potent as a belief brand. For our elites, believing Lucozade Sport made a difference helped make a difference. If we captured and spread this conviction, we could overcome rational skepticism and add emotive power. So we interrogated the difference. The Slenderest of Margins Four interlinked insights rushed forward; 1. Everything and anything could make the difference between winning and losing. Hence preparation has to cover everything and anything. (Every rower is responsible for tightening bolts on his rigger before a big race, because one bolt could make the difference.) 2.