National Lottery Introduces New Advertising Campaign Called “the Guru”
It’s The Heights Of Prediction!
For the first time in National Lottery’s history, a new advertising campaign has been launched to promote the National Lottery’s play online channel directly to avid lottery players. Early last month National Lottery introduced “the Guru” – a person who claims to be able to predict the future from his meditative place, high up in the Macgillycuddy’s Reeks mountain range, Co Kerry. It’s definitely the heights of prediction! Devised by National Lottery’s creative agency DDFH&B, the Guru campaign went live following a 60-second television ad. It is expected to continue over the summer with a further five television ads along with a solid digital version.
the Guru – National Lottery’s Latest Lottery Prediction
We all know that nobody can predict the future one hundred percent all the time. National Lottery’s latest ad campaign features an all knowing, soft spoken, fortune telling Guru, who as it turns out, can’t tell the difference between his head and his toe! Whatever you hear from him should be taken with a pinch of salt; because let’s face it, he’s not exactly Nostradamus! Speaking of the lottery, millions of people already play the lottery, Euro-millions, Power-ball and other games online every single week. For National Lottery this is the first time since the passing of the National Lottery Act 2013 where avid lottery players will be allowed to see the marketing of online play.
The chief executive of the National Lottery, Dermot Griffin, was reported saying that this was the first time that they had gone above the line for marketing online services. In 2013 an Act was passed to facilitate the sale of the license, but it didn’t include any mobile phone or internet play because the National Lottery still operated under legislation from 1987. Nevertheless, in 2009, National Lottery launched a pilot mode of its online services without any marketing activity and still managed to attract 80,000 weekly lotto players to its main draw and instant online games.
According to Griffin, in the short term, Irish lottery will reach the target of 225,000 – 330,000 weekly online players because currently only 15 per cent of UK lottery players play online. While the National Lottery’s newly launched campaign was developed by DDFH&B’s Gavin O’Sullivan and Roland Mahon, the television ads were produced by Sweet Media and directed by Simon Levene.
National Lottery Launches Online Play
In the pilot 60-second ad, a man is seen walking miles, across the river, climbing mountains upon mountains to find the Guru. When he finds him, he asks him if he was the fellow who tells the future, with that the Guru says, “I am”.
The man asks him about lucky lotto numbers to which the Guru replies that there’s no point in telling him the lucky lotto numbers for the week because the young man would never get to the shop in time to play. The young man tells the Guru that he can play online, forcing the Guru to find other excuses for his divine failures. This tells us one thing, apart from playing responsibly; humor works great with the lottery! According to Griffin, the aim was to make the ad fun, entertaining and great for the news. About two per cent of the National Lottery’ revenues are spent on marketing as well as the play online campaign.
It has been reported that this is the biggest campaign that the National Lottery will run this year and that it will be carried out across digital, press and other media channels. The main target is the players who occasionally play the National Lottery. Occasional players, according to Griffin, are those who forget to play along with those who don’t play because there are not near a shop. Occasional players play the National Lottery because of one main reason – they are in a shop and they see someone else playing.
To Griffin, the facility to allow lottery players to play online will give them the ability to know more about those who play. For lottery players, this is good news! You no longer have to be in or near a shop to play the National Lottery. All you need is a phone that connects to the internet! However, National Lottery does expect that the majority of its players will continue to enter draws in-store. To prevent excessive and/or underage play, Griffin ensures that there appropriate controls in place and that the National Lottery is extremely conscious about its approach. Although they want many, many people to play the National Lottery, they have placed priorities over responsible playing.
