I`ve spotted a trend in UK television advertising in which can only be termed "weird".
Businesses here, especially when promoting a specific product or special offer, direct consumers to campaign-specific URLs. So, instead of advertising a URL which reads something like, www.Brand.co.uk, they instead rely on URLs like www.TheCurrentSpecialOffer.co.uk, or www.UnrelatedAndHardToScanCatchphrase.co.uk.
It varies from company to company, but they all seem to follow the trend loyally enough. A manufacturer of toilet paper and tissue products has as its mascot an adorable Labrador puppy. Its Web site is - imaginatively enough - www.andrexpuppy.com. This is still tolerable; the brand name is the key identifier within the URL, and if associating the brand with a cuddly-looking animal is part of the greater campaign, they`ve succeeded.
But against all logic, Lucozade doesn`t seem to have put any effort into the Web site in anticipation of the thousands of consumers they must have hoped they`d pull.
Basheera Khan, UK contributor, ITWeb
Slightly more bizarre is a current Lucozade campaign which is the result of GlaxoSmithkline`s ongoing relationship with Eidos Interactive. The ads rip off the central character of the Tomb Raider games, depicting Lara wannabes escaping hazardous urban situations thanks in part to their own smarts, and in part to the extra energy supplemented by their drink of choice - Lucozade.
The URL running across the bottom of the image frames sends consumers to a Web site called www.goneabitlara.com. And this is where it begins to go pear-shaped.
Firstly, the URL is very hard to catch in the short space of time it is visible on screen; it took me about four viewings of the advert to decipher the URL. As soon as I had it, I went to the Web site, curious to see what strange and wonderful consumer experiences awaited me.
But against all logic, Lucozade doesn`t seem to have put any effort into the Web site in anticipation of the thousands of consumers they must have hoped they`d pull.
All that one will see is a short Flash film (which merely recycles some of the television ad clips), and then these scantly punctuated statements: "This is just the beginning it`s out there it`s spreading - stay informed." I somewhat charitably searched for a link where consumers who wanted to stay informed could sign up to a mailing list of sorts - to no avail. All I had left to pursue were the site`s Ts & Cs, and the privacy policy.
It`s not exactly an intuitive deduction, but I thought that there could be the possibility that one would gain access to the rest of the site after reading either one or both of these documents. Once again, I was completely stymied.
By getting me to visit their site, the campaign worked just as the advertiser intended, I suppose. But the miserly offerings at said site are just ludicrous. There are dozens of ways in which to further embed the marketing message in the consumer base; health tips for those who want to be as strong and smart as Lara Croft; limited offer vouchers which help customers new to the drink try it out at a reduced price; a competition to win Lucozade/Tomb Raider hamper, qualification for which requires the filling out of a form to capture demographic information - these or any number of other campaigns could have been run off the Web platform. But with the Gone A Bit Lara campaign, all you get is a dry, dull Web site, devoid of interesting content.
I can understand the attraction to running different Web sites for different campaigns. I don`t necessarily think it`s the best way to embed brand recognition in your target market, but it certainly has merits in terms of tracking the performance of different ad campaigns.
However, the Lucozade/Gone A Bit Lara campaign has fallen flat. Like many others out there, I have in the past associated Lucozade with recuperating invalids. The bid to revitalise that image began several years ago, and I believe it was working - but so far, all the Gone A Bit Lara campaign has done is make me wonder whether Powerade`s next Web campaign will be executed more professionally.
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