Saatchi and Saatchi has launched a drive this week to boost public
awareness of the range and size of smaller projects supported by the
National Lottery.
The three-week campaign, which has apparently been planned for some
time, comes amid growing public outrage over the National Lottery’s
massive handouts to cultural institutions, including an award of pounds
50 million for the Tate Gallery announced this week. The Tate win was
headlined ‘Fury at pounds 50m looto for dead cow art gallery’ in the
Sun.
Jon Kinsey, the marketing director of Camelot, which runs the lottery,
said the main advertising - built around the ‘It could be you’ theme -
would continue as before.
‘People play the lottery to win prizes and our main marketing emphasis
will continue to concentrate on this theme.’
He added: ‘As Camelot has consistently said, the most efficient way for
people to support a charity of their choice is to give directly to that
charity.’
The new work, which includes four national and three regional black-and-
white press ads, was written by John Pallant and art directed by Mat
Ryan. All the executions feature real beneficiaries in actual locations.
One execution shows an unnamed pole vaulter photographed at Tamworth
Athletic Club, Staffordshire, which was awarded pounds 178,372 of
lottery funds by the Sports Council of England.
Another features a man sitting underneath a tree at Jones’s Mill Nature
Reserve in Wiltshire, which was awarded pounds 75,147 of lottery funds
to buy additional land.
A third, headlined ‘Money you spent on the National Lottery has gone to
help these deserving bodies’ features children from the Banchary
community in Deeside, which has received pounds 40,000 towards sports
facilities.
Paul Burns, the account director on the business, said: ‘This work is
about trying to give a broader view about where National Lottery funds
go. For every pound people spend on the lottery, 28p goes to the good
causes chosen by Parliament.’
