This project imagines how Lucozade could reconnect with today’s culture by transforming from a sugar-fuelled relic into a ritual for emotional clarity.
A drink tied to 90s childhood, care, and recovery, yet now overshadowed by outdated associations with sugar and sick days. In a wellness world that’s increasingly curated and inaccessible, I saw an opportunity to transform Lucozade into something softer, more grounded, and emotionally resonant.
Through this work, I explore how a legacy energy drink can become a symbol of gentle resilience — offering not just hydration, but comfort, clarity, and care for overstimulated minds and modern moods.
Lucozade: Still Familiar. Now Intentional
brand shift
Sick-day sugar drink: Emotional energy ritual
Performance hydration: Mood-based wellness support
Outdated nostalgia: Soft, comforting reframe
Artificial and fluorescent: Clear, clean, calming
strategic roadmap
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Brand challenge
Lucozade must evolve from a nostalgic, sugar-loaded sick-day drink into a relevant, emotionally grounded wellness brand for modern consumers.
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Cultural insight
In a world of overstimulation and curated wellness, people crave products that offer real emotional care — not performance, pressure, or perfection.
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Strategy
Reposition Lucozade as a source of soft, feel-better energy — blending clean refreshment with emotional wellness and nostalgic comfort.
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Activation
We introduced sensory-first, mood-matching experiences and limited-edition design drops that reframe Lucozade as a modern, comforting energy companion.
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work method
I identified the brand tension, shaped the emotional insight, defined the strategy, and crafted campaign ideas that reposition Lucozade with cultural and emotional relevance.
brand challenge
Lucozade is one of the UK’s most recognisable drink brands — but that familiarity comes with baggage.
To many, it still represents fluorescent sugar water from the 90s: something your mum gave you when you were off school with the flu. It’s emotionally familiar, but no longer culturally relevant — especially in a wellness era shaped by cleaner living, emotional regulation, and intentional rituals.
Meanwhile, today’s wellness culture has become overly curated, aspirational, and exclusionary. In fact, 73% of Gen Z say wellness feels “commercial and performative” rather than truly supportive (WGSN, 2023). People are now craving something warmer, more human, and emotionally grounded — wellness that feels like care, not performance.
The challenge:
How can Lucozade shed its outdated “sick-day sugar drink” image and re-emerge as a modern wellness brand — one that uses its nostalgic roots as a source of emotional comfort and soft energy, not sugary and hyperactive?
2. cultural insight
Wellness used to mean green juice, morning routines, and doing more. But today, a new kind of wellness is emerging — one that’s gentle, emotional, and rooted in small rituals of care.
People are burned out. Overstimulated. Disconnected. And they’re looking for simple, sensory experiences that help them feel more human — not more optimised.
In this culture, nostalgia is powerful — not because we want to go backwards, but because it reminds us of safety, slowness, and softness in a world that rarely offers it.
Lucozade already lives in people’s emotional memory. The opportunity isn’t to erase the past — it’s to reframe it. To transform “that drink from when you were sick” into “the drink that helps you feel better, your way.”
3. strategy
Reposition Lucozade as a modern emotional wellness brand — one that offers clean, feel-good energy for today’s emotionally intelligent generation.
Instead of running from its nostalgic roots, Lucozade reframes them: not as a relic of the past, but as a reminder of how good it can feel to be looked after, slow down, and simply recharge.
Lucozade becomes a symbol of gentle energy and emotional clarity — not for athletes, but for real people navigating real life.
This platform positions Lucozade at the intersection of:
Soft nostalgia — warm, comforting, sensory
Emotional wellness — mental clarity, mood balance, feel-first choices
Modern rituals — morning resets, afternoon slumps, post-screen recovery
It redefines energy not as a performance enhancer, but as a tool for emotional resilience.
4. activation ideas
The Lucozade Recovery Fridge
Pop-ups in co-working spaces, universities & gyms — stocked with chilled Lucozade flavours, curated by mood (e.g., Focus, Comfort, Reset).
Each flavour tied to an emotional benefit or ritual.
Mood-based fridge branding (“Pick how you want to feel.”)
QR codes link to playlists, breathwork, or journaling prompts.
Turns Lucozade into a tool for self-regulation — not just hydration.
2. Nostalgia Drop: The Wellness Remix
Limited-edition 90s Lucozade packaging — reissued visually but with a modern twist:
Clean label. Natural sweeteners.
Matte bottle finish, retro gradients, pixel-inspired type.
On-pack copy includes “Then vs Now” moments
“Once for sick days. Now for soft days.”
Makes nostalgia feel cool, modern, and meaningful — not ironic.
