Camelot targets millennials with new game it hopes will ‘unlock’ a different part of people’s brains

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_xwOFGxFUM

Camelot has its sights firmly set on the experience-driven millennial market as it launches the National Lottery’s first new game for 13 years.

Set for Life offers players the chance to win £10,000 a month for 30 years if they match five main balls and the ‘life ball’, with a second prize of £10,000 a month for one year. There are also a number of smaller prizes ranging from £250 to £5. Pitched as offering the opportunity to do something amazing each month, Set for Life costs £1.50 to enter and will be drawn twice a week, on Monday and Thursday, kicking off next week (18 March).

The format of the new game resonates with the millennial audience, who can relate to the experience-focused ‘making every month amazing’ positioning, says Camelot head of draw-based games, Martyn Baxter.

“The £10,000 every month emotionally takes them into a different kind of place where they start talking about all the things they can do, the experiences they could have, the special purchases they could make,” says Baxter.

“It seems to unlock a different part of people’s brains about these emotional experiences that they could have and things they could do with this prize, which we found is particularly relevant among that younger millennial audience.”

In the build-up to launching Set for Life, Camelot conducted audience research and analysis of game formats in the US, Canada and Australia, hoping to build on the success of its ‘Rich for Life’ annuity style scratchcard introduced in 2009. Based on this research, Camelot was confident a game of this type would drive frequency of play, loyalty and longevity, especially among a younger audience.

That is not to say the dream of winning a multi-million pound jackpot is no longer relevant to millennials, Baxter explains, but since the National Lottery’s flagship Lotto game was launched in 1994 a new generation of potential players have emerged who think differently about what they would do if they won the lottery.

“We found when we talked to players about this game it just switched them on emotionally a bit differently around the potential of what they could do with the prize. The fact that it does pay out over a 30-year period seems to take them into quite a different place than some of our big jackpot games,” Baxter explains.

The launch of Set for Life is being promoted by a “massive” multi-channel marketing campaign across TV, video-on-demand (VoD), digital, outdoor, radio, social and in-store point of sale.

Under the tagline ‘Make every month amazing’, the TV advert – created by adam&eveDDB – imagines what it would feel like living with a £10,000 cash injection every month. Baxter explains that the channel mix was deliberately chosen to generate mass awareness relatively quickly among current players and the new target demographic.

Given the game’s millennial appeal, digital is a more important part of the channel mix than normal, while Camelot has also ramped up its influencer activity. The team has embarked on a three-phase strategy, working with influencers whose followers are interested in fashion, travel and lifestyle.

Leading up to the tickets going on sale for the first time today (15 March), Camelot worked with 100 influencers on creating content exploring what they would do if they won the top prize and outlining their bucket list items. With the tickets on sale, Camelot plans to build on this initial push by working with a further with 50 influencers on content focused on the excitement winning the game would create.

The idea is then to get into a “monthly rhythm”, showing what amazing things the winners could be doing each month, relevant to the season.

Portfolio approach

The last time Camelot introduced a brand new game was Dream Number in July 2006, which offered prizes ranging from £2 to £500,000 and ran until February 2011. Prior to that was the introduction of the EuroMillions rolling jackpot, which went live in 2004.

From a strategic perspective, Camelot is keen to have a portfolio of games that appeals to the broadest possible cross-section of the population, stretching from the value proposition of a £1 Thunderball ticket, right up to the £2.50 buy in for the EuroMillions prize.

Rather than deliberately trying to undercut the Lotto ticket price at £2, Baxter explains that the £1.50 entry price for Set for Life plugs a gap in the portfolio and offers the best mix according to the frequency of prizes and ability to offer lower level prizes of £5 upwards.

A wide-ranging review of Camelot’s strategy was kicked off by Nigel Railton, who took over from Andy Duncan as CEO in 2017. The review found the draw based-games (non-scratchcards) were overlapping too much in terms of the way they appealed to different players, which started a move towards broadening out the appeal of the wider portfolio.

In November, Camelot revamped the Lotto game to share out the money across more winners and make all the cash prizes bigger. As a result, the amount a player wins for matching five balls and a bonus ball rose from £50,000 to £1m. The changes to the prize structure have resulted in Lotto creating 50 new millionaires since November, 40% more millionaires than with the old format game.

In addition, the jackpot is now only allowed to rollover for five times, compared to 10 rolls previously. If the jackpot is not claimed the money will cascade down through all the other prize tiers.

With the introduction of Set for Life, Camelot hopes having a different style of game in the portfolio will drive incremental sales by encouraging a core group of players to engage on a regular basis, as well as attracting a new audience currently not playing any National Lottery games.