People’s awareness and understanding of The National Lottery’s enormous contribution to good causes was failing. The London 2012 Olympic Games provided both a challenge and a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. In order to capitalise on it we needed to cut through the clutter to increase awareness of TNL’s unparalleled contribution to the games and improve people’s perceptions of The National Lottery as a brand that changes Britain for the better. If we were able to achieve that we might also be able to help avoid the risk raised by the Games, which threatened a loss in sales of somewhere in the region of £16m - £24m, and subsequently disastrous impact on TNL’s contribution to Good Causes.

Our campaign showed how Olympic funding made a critical difference to British Olympic athletes, by focussing on the true life story of a single athlete in order to maximise the emotional engagement with viewers. Inspired by the story of Olympic athlete and National Lottery beneficiary, Jenny Meadows, and her mother Barbara, we showed the difference between a generation who didn’t benefit from National Lottery Good Causes funding and one that did.

Hall & Partners tracking studies demonstrated the effectiveness of the ‘Runner’ TV ad:

• Increased awareness and understanding of TNL’s funding of the London 2012 Olympic Games

• Improved perceptions of TNL’s generosity towards good causes.

• Increased brand engagement metrics as a result; higher than other larger brands.

The Havas econometric model showed that Runner delivered an ROI of £7.4 for every £1 spent on the campaign even though the Olympic summer presented a significant risk to sales.

As part of TNL’s entire summer marketing activity the Runner campaign helped contribute to the record breaking success of the EuroMillions 00 millionaires event.

• 20 million people played – 3 million more than the last peak in penetration.

• Over 24 million transactions were made – 10 million more than the previous record (+73%).

• Record breaking £200 million in sales during the week of the 100 millionaires draw.

• £56 million was rasied for TNL Good Causes Projects, going some way towards helping future British athletes with their Olympic dreams.

In this paper, we have demonstrated that brand perceptions and emotional engagement can be improved even during a time when people are being bombarded with a host of communications all focussing around the same event.