Published: May 3, 2021

Camelot highlights good causes in new national ad campaign

New campaign highlights how when millions of people play The National Lottery a little, it makes living in the UK better

Camelot, the operator of The National Lottery, is launching a new national advertising campaign that showcases the transformational effect that National Lottery Good Causes funding has on UK society and how any number of amazing things can happen when people buy a ticket.

Running across TV, Radio, Digital and OOH, the campaign first airs on Saturday 1 May, with a 60” spot during Game of Talents on ITV, and with further primetime ad slots throughout the week, including during Emmerdale. The new initiative highlights various National Lottery Good Causes projects – from beach-cleaning and museums, to community sports and music programmes – and helps make the connection between players buying a ticket and the around £30 million a week going to UK Good Causes. To date, over 625,000 projects have received National Lottery funding.

In the fast-paced new TV advert voiced by Dermot O’Leary, a National Lottery player puts on his Lotto numbers before heading off on an exhilarating journey – where he experiences first-hand various fun National Lottery Good Cause projects. Setting the scene for what’s to come next as the player rounds a street corner, we hear Dermot say: “When we all play The National Lottery a little, fun stuff happens.”

As he disappears around the corner, we next see him transformed into full sports gear racing down a skate ramp. He jumps off the other side of the ramp and suddenly appears on a pristine beach, which he continues along until he is met by an angry mob of Vikings (a battle re-enactment group). Fortunately, his attire transforms to ‘Viking warrior’ – complete with a horned helmet, furry tunic and lengthy beard – as he races into battle. Things take another twist when we see him smash into a museum on a souped-up wheelchair, where he passes an animated set of triceratops dinosaur bones. Finally, we see his wheelchair produce a paragliding parachute and he floats up into the sky.

Camelot’s Chief Marketing Officer, Keith Moor, said: “With our latest National Lottery ad campaign, we are demonstrating the enormous power that players wield simply by buying a ticket. Together, in their millions, they are transforming the UK for the better – helping to raise around £30 million every week for National Lottery Good Causes projects across the UK. The fact that this particular player in the advert is seeing first-hand these projects and he himself transforms along the way, symbolises that when people play The National Lottery a little, fun stuff happens – and the transformational effect of this funding.

“But the wider campaign goes further than that. It marks the start of our ‘summer of fun’, which taps into the mood of the nation as lockdown restrictions continue to ease, by celebrating all the fun stuff that players support.”

National Lottery players will have the chance to experience first-hand the incredible projects funded by The National Lottery over the summer, to help them understand the fun behind the funding figures. These include National Lottery Open Week and Cinema Weekend, which will take place later in the summer and where players can receive a pair of free cinema tickets as well as special offers or free entry to hundreds of National Lottery-funded attractions across the UK, such as properties run by the National Trust.

The campaign will also incorporate the use of social media, which will provide a deeper insight into National Lottery Good Causes funding by highlighting stories of individual projects. This will help the public understand the incredible depth to the £42 billion National Lottery Good Causes funding figure to date.

The TV ad was created by adam&eveDDB, with media planning and buying done by Vizeum.

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For further information, please contact:

Camelot Press Office: 020 7632 5711

ABOUT CAMELOT

  • Camelot UK Lotteries Limited is the licensed operator of The National Lottery® and is committed to raising money for National Lottery Good Causes designated by Parliament. Camelot is not responsible for distributing or awarding these funds.
  • The National Lottery generates over £30 million each week for National Lottery-funded projects. In total, over £42 billion has now been raised and more than 625,000 individual grants have been made across the UK – the equivalent of around 220 lottery grants in every UK postcode district.
  • The National Lottery has so far awarded over £78 billion in prizes and created more than 5,900 millionaires or multi-millionaires since its launch in 1994.
  • Camelot runs one of the most cost-efficient major lotteries in Europe, with around 4% of total revenue spent on operating costs.
  • The UK National Lottery is ranked just 60th in the world in terms of per capita spend, despite being the fifth largest lottery in the world by sales – underlining Camelot’s strategy to encourage lots of people to play but to only spend relatively small amounts (Source: La Fleur’s 2021 World Lottery Almanac).
  • With over 8.5 million active registered players, national-lottery.co.uk is Europe’s largest online lottery in terms of sales and one of the top e-commerce sites in the UK.
  • For further information on Camelot, The National Lottery and its games, please visit: www.camelotgroup.co.uk and www.national-lottery.co.uk.
  • Players of all National Lottery games must be aged 18 or over.