Team GB gymnast Nile Wilson, Britain’s Got Talent finalists Twist and Pulse and ballet star Alessia Lugoboni have teamed up with Lucozade Ribena Suntory and Transport for London to promote an offer for commuters of free journeys on the London Underground, using ‘contactless’ Lucozade Energy bottles.

From May 30 to June 2 at Oxford Circus Station during ‘Whoosh Hour’, Lucozade brand ambassadors will be handing out thousands of limited edition Lucozade Energy bottles with contactless chips, like the ones found in TfL’s Oyster Card, embedded in the base. Lucky recipients will be able to use the bottles like Oyster Cards for one free Underground journey.

Lucozade Energy also enlisted Wilson, Twist and Pulse and Lugoboni to help promote the activation with three films featuring them using their talents to get through the station to their tube trains. The contactless bottle give-away and the videos are in support of the brand’s ‘Find Your Flow’ campaign message. The Lugoboni film has been posted to YouTube.

Whoosh Hour is a fully integrated campaign with support from integrated agency The Big Kick, shopper marketing agency Valenstein & Fatt (formerly Grey Shopper), event agency TRO, media agency MediaCom and PR agency Frank PR.

Lucozade Ribena Suntory is putting a considerable marketing budget behind the various offshoots of the umbrella Lucozade brand at the moment. A week ago, it launched a new campaign for Lucozade Sport featuring an on-pack promo offering consumers the chance to win more prizes the more active they are, including fitness trackers, gym memberships, tickets to events such as the FA Cup Final, England football matches, the Tour de France, an Adele concert and holidays to Australia, the US and the Middle East.

At the beginning of April, Lucozade Zero and fashion retailer Missguided announced a collaboration, ‘Zero To Pay’, which was brought to life through on-pack promotion and experiential marketing. The on-pack promotion offered consumers a range of discounts which could be unlocked through codes on mini cans of Lucozade Zero. Targeting city centres, train stations and shopping centres, a sampling campaign offered bespoke miniature cans featuring unique Missguided discount codes. The activity was bolstered at high footfall locations with a ‘Zero to Pay’ nail bar, offering Lucozade Zero-inspired complimentary nail art.

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Content marketing and promotional marketing can work together, argues Tim Tsung of Grey Shopper

Traditional advertising begins by delivering features, benefits, and a USP through a product story, then connecting them to people in a creative way. Branded Content focuses instead on finding the stories that would resonate with its audience, then creatively connects these concepts to their product. Or as Robert Rose explains more colourfully, “Traditional marketing and advertising is telling the world you’re a rock star. Content Marketing is showing the world that you are one.”

Essentially, as The Content Marketing Institute explains, companies consistently create and curate content in order to “attract and retain customers” (drive loyalty) and subsequently “change or enhance a consumer behaviour… with the objective of driving profitable customer action” (increase sales and save costs).

What this “Content” entails and what format it takes ranges from short films (e.g. Volvo’s Human Made Stories) to apps (e.g. McVitie’s iKitten).

“Content is King”

Bill Gates’ Microsoft focused on the software inside the computer as opposed to the hardware themselves. As such, when he declared that “Content is King” in 1996, he firmly believed that content would drive the success of the internet. In the same way, many brands use Content Marketing to drive their success by distributing what consumers really want to see and encouraging them to engage with the brand in a longer-lasting and more organic way, as opposed to simply “jam[ing]” their logo into your “periphery.” (Keith Blanchard).

Therefore, Branded Content is a more integrated approach to communications and as such, is much less intrusive on people’s lives. This is important as it makes the marketing more digestible and less-prone to being avoided outright by the consumer. Needless to say, if the content generates enough passion and entertainment, consumers will pay attention to the brand – “Content is King” only if the content is good, relevant and valuable.

A fine example of Branded Content is American Express’ OPEN Forum, labelled as the “Gold Standard” of Content Marketing. OPEN Forum owes its success to a perfect blend of quality content with a passionate community. On here, American Express provides small businesses with the advice they need to be successful and subsequently, became a destination for business owners to share ideas, seek guidance and develop plans. American Express clearly benefits from running OPEN Forum because the platform is the company’s #1 source of leads for new card members.

Implications for Promotional Marketing

Promotional Marketing is designed to “influence and incentivise sales or action.” Therefore, by definition, Promotional Marketing is enacted with a desired outcome in mind. On the other hand, Content Marketing is designed not to “pitch, but, rather, inform.” As such, it appears at first that Content & Promotional Marketing are at odds with one another.

Yet the implications for Branded Content are that it can add another dimension to Promotional Marketing. This is because brands are beginning to re-define “promotion” as meaning more than just “promoting” a product or action but rather, promoting the brand’s tenets, ideals and principles on a macro level.

An often cited example is Red Bull’s Content Marketing strategy. From hosting live music in the London Eye’s pods (Red Bull Revolutions in Sound) to sponsoring cliff diving (Red Bull Cliff Diving), Red Bull’s activities and content all support, ladder up to and re-affirm its overarching brand principle of “Giving Wings.”

Red Bull’s Content Marketing may not directly increase sales as obviously as other forms of Direct Marketing but tellingly, Euromonitor reports that Red Bull is to energy drinks what Coca-Cola is to soft drinks, even though it sells at a 50% premium over other energy drinks. This is significant as Red Bull rarely runs price promotions or prize promotions, meaning its Content Marketing plays a big role in driving brand equity and making it desirable regardless of offers.

Tim Tsung is a Planning Account Executive at Grey Shopper

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