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Lucozade Sport Brings a Stone Statue to Life for 2023
Lucozade Sport's 'Statue' is a 30-second television spot created by adam&eveDDB, aired on 27 December 2022 in the United Kingdom, in which a park statue springs to life after sipping Lucozade Sport and joins everyday exercisers across a park run, a football match, a HIIT class, and a weightlifting session.
The campaign launches against a clear strategic problem. Lucozade Sport, long positioned in the minds of United Kingdom consumers as a drink for elite athletes and high-intensity performers, needed to broaden its appeal to a wider population of everyday exercisers. The 'Statue' creative concept directly addresses this perception gap by placing a literal stone figure — the most unlikely of athletes — at the centre of the action. The implication is unambiguous: if a statue can get moving with Lucozade Sport, so can anyone.
Tom Bell, Head of Marketing at Lucozade Sport, stated publicly that the campaign was designed to create what he described as an uplifting advert that helps energise people to unlock their potential, targeting consumers who were setting fitness goals for 2023, as reported by marketing-beat.co.uk. The timing of the first broadcast, just days after Christmas and on the cusp of the new year, anchors the campaign directly to the annual surge in fitness motivation across the United Kingdom. The 30-second format, economical and built for broadcast reach, allowed the brand to plant a single, visually memorable idea — animated stone, human ambition — into a cluttered January advertising environment.
The campaign carries a Clapboard Score of 63 out of 100, reflecting a creative execution that is competent and strategically coherent but stops short of the cultural impact its premise promises. Produced for the non-alcoholic drinks, fitness, and sports categories, 'Statue' represents Lucozade Sport's most explicit attempt in recent years to shift from performance-elite positioning toward inclusive, participatory fitness messaging across the United Kingdom market.
Lucozade Sport identifies a specific and underserved consumer: the ordinary person who exercises regularly but does not identify as an elite athlete. This positioning move is both commercially rational and culturally timely. In the United Kingdom, the sports drinks category is a significant and expanding business. According to glassandnote.com, Great Britain's sports drinks category is worth approximately £408 million, having recorded 45 per cent value growth and 20 per cent volume growth, per Nielsen data cited in 2024. That trajectory gives Lucozade Sport a material commercial incentive to widen the funnel beyond a narrow performance audience.
Senior creatives Ben Robinson and Mike Whiteside at adam&eveDDB articulated the strategic logic directly, stating that the concept was rooted in the idea that every body is made to move, whether you are an athlete, a non-athlete, or an inanimate statue made of stone, as reported by creativebrief.com. The line is not merely a tagline but a strategic declaration, repositioning Lucozade Sport as a hydration partner for the full spectrum of physical activity rather than a specialist tool for peak performers.
The competitive landscape in the United Kingdom makes this repositioning necessary as well as opportunistic. Brands such as Powerade, distributed by Coca-Cola, and Gatorade, owned by PepsiCo, compete in the same non-alcoholic drinks and sports hydration space. Both competitors have historically maintained strong associations with professional sport and elite athletic sponsorship, meaning Lucozade Sport's move toward inclusive, everyday fitness messaging offers a genuine point of differentiation rather than a retreat. The January timing further sharpens this strategic edge, allowing the campaign to intercept consumers at the precise moment when fitness intentions are highest across the United Kingdom, without requiring the brand to outspend rivals on premium sports sponsorship territory.
Director Charlotte Haddy leads the visual execution of 'Statue', bringing the central conceit — a stone park statue discovering the joy of movement — to life through a combination of live action and visual effects, as documented by Creative Salon. The spot opens in a recognisable British park environment, grounding the fantasy in a setting immediately familiar to United Kingdom audiences. A woman on a park run pauses for a drink of Lucozade Sport, and the stone figure beside her, evidently inspired, takes a covert sip and begins to move.
The VFX work is central to the campaign's success and was handled by Black Kite Studios, according to creative.salon and creativebrief.com. Animating a stone figure with enough physical credibility to participate convincingly in a football match, a HIIT class, and a weightlifting session demands effects work that is seamless rather than conspicuous. The creative decision to make the statue's movements slightly stiff and effortful — stone learning to become athletic — adds a layer of physical comedy that makes the character sympathetic rather than merely fantastical. Production also involved Rich Hall and Riff Raff as production contributors, per creative.salon.
Ben Robinson and Mike Whiteside, the adam&eveDDB senior creatives behind the concept, grounded the creative brief in a democratising philosophy, as reported by creativebrief.com. The choice of a park run as the campaign's opening activity is deliberate: parkrun is one of the United Kingdom's most genuinely inclusive mass-participation fitness movements, free and open to all abilities. Placing Lucozade Sport in that context rather than on a professional sports pitch signals the brand's intended audience shift without requiring a single word of explanation. The 30-second constraint disciplines the storytelling, moving the statue through four distinct exercise contexts in a sequence that feels propulsive rather than crowded. Production credits for the full cast and crew of 'Statue' are partially documented across creative.salon and creativebrief.com, though a complete public credits list is not available.
No verified performance data for the 'Statue' campaign is publicly available in terms of sales uplift, view counts, or brand-tracking shifts. What the structural evidence does support is a campaign well-constructed for its stated objective: changing consumer perception of Lucozade Sport from an elite-athlete product to an everyday fitness companion across the United Kingdom.
The campaign's effectiveness argument rests on several observable structural factors. First, the January air date — broadcast from 27 December 2022 — places Lucozade Sport directly inside the United Kingdom's peak fitness-resolution window, when consumer receptivity to activity-related messaging is demonstrably high. Second, the visual metaphor of a stone statue discovering movement is both immediately legible and genuinely memorable, qualities that matter for a 30-second broadcast spot competing in a cluttered new-year advertising environment. Third, the creative avoids the credibility trap that undermines many sports drink campaigns aimed at non-elite audiences: it does not attempt to glamorise ordinary exercise or dress it in the aesthetics of professional sport. The statue's awkward, earnest participation is played for warmth and relatability.
Lucozade Sport is owned by Suntory Beverage and Food GB&I, following Suntory's acquisition of the Lucozade Ribena business from GlaxoSmithKline in 2013 for approximately £1.35 billion, according to Media Journoportfolio. That ownership context underlines the scale of commercial ambition behind the brand's repositioning work. The Clapboard Score of 63 out of 100 reflects a campaign that executes its brief with clarity and craft but does not fully escape the sense that the central idea, charming as it is, remains one creative beat short of genuine cultural memorability within the broader United Kingdom sports and fitness advertising landscape.
Lucozade Sport's 'Statue' is a 30-second TV ad created by adam&eveDDB and aired in the United Kingdom on 27 December 2022. A park statue comes to life after sipping Lucozade Sport and joins everyday exercisers. The campaign repositions the brand as suitable for all exercisers, not just elite athletes or high-intensity performers.
Adam&eveDDB created the 'Statue' campaign for Lucozade Sport. Senior creatives Ben Robinson and Mike Whiteside developed the concept. Charlotte Haddy directed the spot, with VFX handled by Black Kite Studios and additional production involvement from Rich Hall and Riff Raff, as documented by creative.salon and creativebrief.com.
Lucozade Sport timed the 'Statue' campaign to intercept United Kingdom consumers during the annual new-year fitness motivation peak. Tom Bell, Head of Marketing at Lucozade Sport, stated the campaign aimed to energise people setting fitness targets for 2023, as reported by marketing-beat.co.uk. The first broadcast aired 27 December 2022.
Lucozade Sport's 'Statue' campaign aims to broaden the brand's appeal beyond elite athletes across the United Kingdom. Adam&eveDDB senior creatives Ben Robinson and Mike Whiteside stated the concept was built on the idea that every body is made to move, positioning Lucozade Sport as relevant to all exercisers regardless of intensity or ability.
Lucozade Sport's 'Statue' campaign received a Clapboard Score of 63 out of 100. The score reflects a creatively coherent and strategically clear execution that communicates its inclusive fitness message effectively in the United Kingdom market but falls short of achieving the kind of cultural impact that would distinguish it as a landmark campaign.
Lucozade Sport is owned by Suntory Beverage and Food GB&I, following Suntory's acquisition of the Lucozade Ribena business from GlaxoSmithKline in 2013 for approximately £1.35 billion, according to media.journoportfolio.com. Previous campaigns include 'The Next Move', created by Grey London and associated with a planned £10 million advertising drive, per campaignlive.co.uk.
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