Aengus King, our Powerade client, talks about our current campaign:

If there is one thing that makes time move quickly it is working on a Never Give Up Powerade campaign. The structure of the campaign means we are always either planning a campaign, recruiting or interviewing candidates for it, or filming them for the next TV ad. This year we are following two lads and a girl as they train to complete a marathon in the Alps at altitude. That’s 26 miles at altitude… the first ten miles are uphill… the race is scheduled to take up to 10 hours to complete… jaysus!

We are heading to Davos on Thurs for the race on Saturday and looking to hire a 9-seater “boogie bus” for the 3 hour drive from Zurich airport. Should be a bit of fun!

Filming real life is very exciting and challenging from an advertising point-of-view. What I mean is, we still have the same objectives as a conventional “Camera rolling…. ACTION!” campaign (branding, dramatic tension, role of the brand, etc), but because they are not actors or indeed acting, we can’t put words in the their mouths or make them do certain things to ensure these objectives are met. So for each ad, we need to really think long and hard about the situations they will find themselves and the things they might say… and make sure we are there to film it!  We can’t ask them “would you mind running back up that hill just one more time as I wasn’t ready!”

But it is worth the effort! This is our third Never Give Up campaign and it has seen the brand move from being just another sports drink modeled on elite sportspeople, to being a differentiated brand that more 16-29 year olds feel understands the role of sport in their lives. Well done Stanno and McCann for another winning campaign!