Tim Brooks Sep 6, 2026
Lucozade
Lucozade has been around since 1927, starting life as a hospital drink for the sick and convalescent before repositioning as an energy and sports drink in the 1980s. It's one of the great British brand reinventions and Suntory, who acquired it in 2013, has continued investing heavily to keep it relevant.
Today the brand operates across three distinct ranges. Lucozade Energy is the original glucose drink and has a growing range of flavours. Lucozade Sport is the UK's number one sports drink.
The Ice Kick launch in March 2025 was a new kind of move for the brand. Rather than signing Jude Bellingham as a celebrity endorser and building a campaign around him, Lucozade brought him in as a genuine co-creator, involved in developing both the flavour and the marketing. The result was Ice Kick, a zesty citrus sports drink with Bellingham's iconic goal celebration on the front of the bottle.
The campaign launched through a social-first strategy led by We Are Social Sport, starting with a mysterious Ice Vault installed in London's Shoreditch, engraved with Bellingham's signature and opened via clues dropped on his Instagram. It became the brand's biggest NPD launch in Lucozade Sport's history and was awarded a Bronze at The Drum Awards for Marketing EMEA 2026.
#WhatBrandsDo, among other things, is never stand still. They must also still stand for something enduring and resist lurching from one new idea to the next. Brand management is therefore a complex mix of holding to your true north and leaning into change – be it emerging consumer needs, new occasions, changing product preferences, the ever-changing cultural milieu and making sure you keep up with new media and marketing opportunities. This is hard.
Lucozade is doing something clever here. This is innovation plus +++! Innovation built on a different foundation that starts beyond the product.
This is important, because on one level, this could be just another flavour launch for the powerful Lucozade Sport franchise. That can end up as a relatively small-scale, if essential, play, perhaps treated as a churn idea by retailers. The Suntory team has taken it to the next level by thinking about the innovation as a holistic brand, marketing and product idea. It is not just a flavour variant it is a new property for the brand. It creates a compelling narrative, an idea, a platform, an event, an occasion, ready-made content etc. all of which symbiotically fuel its launch. This is built into the provenance of idea itself, not celebrity endorsement but credible celebrity partnership. This occupies a unique hybrid space. The power and science of Lucozade Sport and the value and athletic credibility of Jude Bellingham’s brand.
Lucozade has often used elite athletes – the iconic Daley Thompson ad springs to mind - but this goes way beyond that. The partnership leans into change and new ways of doing things, whilst staying totally aligned with the brand key heritage and equity.
We know not all brands will have the scale or equity to zig like this, but all brands can think like this! We hope it is a success because it is a fabulous example of how great brands are never afraid to innovate with product and brand marketing to occupy a new space. Chapeau!
