Health Lottery hopes launch campaign will reach 98% of the UK
The Health Lottery plans to reach 98% of adult consumers with its forthcoming launch marketing campaign as it looks overtake Camelot to become the dominant lottery provider in the UK.
A £20m marketing awareness campaign launches today (28 September), which includes TV, press, outdoor, experiential, radio, POS and PR.
Former Kraft Foods head of marketing and now The Health Lottery chief executive Martin Hall, says “it was not possible” to secure any more media space to promote the draw.
“We will get to most consumers 24 times in the first two weeks on TV alone with this campaign. We are looking to reach 98% of the 16-plus population,” he adds.
A 60-second TV ad, voiced by actor Brian Blessed airs from today (28 September), and aims to educate consumers on how they can play the game and to inform them that some money raised for proceeds will be donated to local health charities.
The Health Lottery has also secured “one in every 10” poster sites available in Great Britain and has become the “biggest lottery terminal network in the world”, with consumers able to purchase draw tickets from more than 40,000 retailers.
Hall, who has also previously had marketing stints at Coca-Cola and Premier Foods, says the The Health Lottery’s launch is not about stealing share from Camelot’s National Lottery, but that it is designed to grow the “tired” lottery category.
He adds, in the face of recent criticism that the new Health Lottery donates less to good causes than the National Lottery, that it is also important that the company drives transparency in the sector about what percentage of the money spent on tickets goes to charity.
“This is about choice. The Health Lottery has better prizes and pays out 20.5p – in full – to charity. Or you could win less and contribute to the Olympics, or to opera…it’s hard to argue that National Lottery money going to the Olympics isn’t a tax replacement,” Hall says.
The Health Lottery will be broadcast in a 60-second ad slot each Saturday night on Channel 5 and ITV1. The show will be fronted by TV presenter Eamonn Holmes.
Hall says that he was approached by people and told not to add a “contrived show” before the main draw, similar to that on the BBC’s Saturday night lottery draws.
“People want to know how much they’ve won, if they haven’t, they want to know where the money is going and then they want to go back to watching X Factor. You need to be engaging people to watch a show beforehand and the BBC doesn’t have that impact at the moment.”
The Health Lottery is funded by Northern and Shell, the company owned by Richard Desmond, which also owns The Express newspapers and OK! Magazine.
