How is Media Language used in the Lucozade Adverts?

How is Media Language used in the Lucozade Adverts?

Refer to the social & sporting contexts in your response.

The Lucozade adverts use media language to represent their drinks as something that will improve stamina, endurance and performance in sport. By using Gareth Bale as a prominent endorsement of their brand they display an athlete who is at the peak of his career and fitness, as at the time he had recently been transferred to Real Madrid with a world record transfer fee of around £88.8 million. Lucozade used this to their advantage with the tagline “in a different league” to refer not only to his talent in sport but also joke about his transfer from the Premier League to Real Madrid. This tagline also solidifies the idea that Lucozade will help to improve your skill and performance in sport so you can reach the skill level of athletes like Bale.

The image used of Bale in these advertisements portrays him as a powerful and focused athlete, it is the most prominent aspect of the advert alongside the text, these two features are used together to display to the viewer that Lucozade will make you more powerful athlete as Bale currently is. The drink itself is also shown next to the image of Bale, not only to show the viewer what is being advertised but to associate Bale’s success in sporting and fitness with Lucozade.

The tagline “hydrates and fuels you better than water” that Lucozade used prominently in their advertising came under fire for being misleading as it provided fuel through calories and therefore was only effective for long sessions of endurance exercise. 63 complaints were made to the ASA causing the advert to eventually be banned, despite Lucozade stating that the tagline was intended to be relevant for endurance exercise and assumed people seeing these adverts would understand this as they portrayed athletes who often play for extended amounts of time and need to keep up their energy for a long time as they play.