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The failed bomb plot has given Lucozade a PR problem

When the headlines connect your product to a terrorist plot, it's time for a crisis meeting
Lucozade has got an image problem. Photograph: Sarah Lee

"After 90 minutes of sheer hell, you're gonna get thirsty," panted John Barnes, who taught the world the meaning of the word isotonic while thumping a Wembley vending machine, which miraculously dispensed a free can of Lucozade.

Almost two decades after that legendary advert, Lucozade is going through its own 90 minutes of PR hell following lurid headlines such as "The Lucozade Bombers" (in the Guardian) about the thwarted plot to blow up seven planes with bombs concealed inside bottles of the energy drink.

The fact that the terrorists also used bottles of Oasis has been less reported. "The Oasis Bombers" just doesn't have the same menace to it. They would have had artistic differences and never got their plot off the ground. What if they had used smoothie bottles? Headline writers would really struggle with "The Innocent Bombers".

Poor old Lucozade. One of its current promotions – "You. Your mates. Five amazing challenges" – doesn't exactly decontaminate the brand. But what else can it do?

The spokeswoman for Lucozade at parent company GlaxoSmithKline did not answer her phone yesterday and PR guru Mark Borkowski predicted they would be in crisis meetings.

Smaller brands might secretly welcome the association or at least make an irreverent joke about it, reckons Borkowski. "You can see Mock The Week having great fun with it but it's too uncomfortable for the parent company. The problem is these brands are owned by enormous companies who are incredibly nervous because of beagle-smoking issues."

Eh? Beagle smoking, Borkowski explains, is the perception that pharmaceutical behemoths are engaged in research that offends animal lovers. This puts "pharma PR" on a defensive footing. "Media have a morbid curiosity about kicking them," he says. "It's the same with Horlicks."

Now a plot involving tubs of Horlicks really would be a headline writer's dream.

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