Atkins Lift

Challenge

Atkins LIFT is a new, high protein, low carb sports nutrition bar for people who lead an active life. In a market where the emphasis is on ‘carb-loading’ to boost performance, Atkins wanted to drive home the message that what you eat after exercise is just as important as what you eat before.

Provocative Thought

Unlike other sports bars, LIFT gives you the protein you need after exercise without the carbs you don’t. You’ve put the hard work in, you deserve to get results.

Solution

Our audience already understood the role played by protein and carbs, so we levelled with them – eating a carb-loaded sports bar after you’ve exercised can undo all the hard work you’ve just put in. So if you want to get the most out of your active lifestyle, give yourself a low carb LIFT.

health, sports and fitness advertising for sports nutrition products

FMCG, health and fitness product new launch advertising communications

Campaign insights

LIFT is Atkins’s first sports nutrition bar. More significantly, it’s the first step on Atkins’s brand journey to extend its appeal beyond its famous diet and reposition as a fitness/lifestyle/wellbeing brand. To help them on their way, we were asked to create LIFT’s brand positioning, visual identity and a campaign platform to launch it to an international audience.

Sports nutrition is a saturated, noisy market with some very strong, well-established competition. Globally, it’s also worth $10bn with a projected growth of 5.5% forecast by 2020 in Europe alone as more of us get switched on to healthier lifestyle choices.

A diffusion brand with a difference

To successfully launch LIFT and get people to try the product, we had to do something different to other diffusion brands that piggyback the credentials of the master brand. Our strategy was to design a positioning that allowed LIFT to stand on its own two feet, supported by 40 years of Atkins’s low carb expertise.

Customer research identified LIFT’s core audience as ‘active lifestylers’ with a slight male bias. These are people that work hard to keep fit, look after themselves, try their best to eat well. They cycle, run, surf, hike, do yoga, workout. We knew that 88% of consumers were already aware of the benefits of protein when exercising, so our focus was not on education but prompting a shift in behaviour.

LIFT and the low carb post-workout moment

Most of us are aware that carbs = energy. Many of these ‘active lifestylers’ carb-load before or during exercise to give them an energy boost. There’s nothing wrong with that. LIFT isn’t there to boost performance, it’s there to ensure you get the full benefit from your exercise.

Eating a carb-packed protein bar after you’ve exercise allows your muscles to get the protein they need to rebuild and recover. If they’re not burnt off, your body will store them as fat. Yes, the f-word. How can you avoid it? By going for a low carb high protein bar like LIFT after you’ve exercised. Otherwise you risk undoing all the hard work you’ve just put in.

Don’t undo the hard work

We created a verbal and visual language that spoke to these active lifestylers on their level. The typeface used was strong and the photography has a gritty, urban edge that draws the audience in. The brand was given a direct, honest tone of voice with a punchy style. Nothing too serious though.

We wanted the audience to know that LIFT understands all the hard work and dedication it takes to lead a healthy, active life and it’s here to help you maximise your returns on the effort you put in.

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