MAKE AMAZING HAPPEN
National Lottery Promotions Unit
Annual Review and Accounts 2023/24
| 30 Years of Changing Lives: The National Lottery’s 30th Birthday Programme
| The Search is on for Real Game Changers: New Look Awards for the 30th
National Lottery Promotions Unit
Annual Review and Accounts 2023/24
| 30 Years of Changing Lives: The National Lottery’s 30th Birthday Programme
| The Search is on for Real Game Changers: New Look Awards for the 30th
The National Lottery Promotions Unit (NLPU) raises positive public awareness of National Lottery funding towards good causes, thereby contributing to the overall health of The National Lottery brand.
Through the One National Lottery approach (an agreed internal protocol within The National Lottery family to ensure consistency of messaging and promotion), the NLPU delivers campaigns that encompass traditional and digital media which unite the National Lottery family, raise public awareness, and thank National Lottery players for funding thousands of incredible projects across the UK.
The NLPU is a joint venture between the 12 National Lottery distributors, the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport (DCMS) and the current operator, Allwyn. Six of the 12 Distributors and The Gambling Commission (who license The National Lottery to comply with any regulations made by the Secretary of State under Section 12 of the National Lottery Act) also sit on the NLPU’s Management Board to make decisions and steer strategy.
As a promotional unit that reports into the Management Board, the NLPU is uniquely placed to act and drive programmes of work forward in a way that nobody else in The National Lottery family can.
The UK’s National Lottery is one of the biggest in the world, raising more than £30 million each week for good causes. The National Lottery Promotions Unit (NLPU) plays a crucial role in bringing the magic of National Lottery good causes funding to life by delivering creative and innovative storytelling across multiple campaigns.
The people and good causes we support have always been at the heart of NLPU campaigns and is the inspiration behind what they do best—highlighting the positive and life-changing impact that National Lottery good causes funding has on people’s lives throughout the UK.
In 2023–24, the cost-of-living crisis deepened, and we have endured almost unprecedented levels of inflation. We appreciate that post Covid, with the costof-living pressures and an unstable economy, that it’s a challenging time for communities up and down the country. The NLPU has been at the forefront this year with regards to highlighting how National Lottery funding towards good causes has helped alleviate the pressure on some of the most vulnerable members of our community and made their lives that little bit better.
The unit continues to pay close heed to shifts in the external environment and ensures that it adapts its media activities and campaigns to these changes accordingly. In 2023, the Russia-Ukraine war continued and renewed conflict in the Middle East raised the likelihood of another regional war, and more people fleeing their homelands to seek refuge in places of safety.
With Liverpool hosting the Eurovision Song Contest on behalf of war-torn Ukraine in May 2023, the NLPU worked effectively with the wider National Lottery family to highlight exactly how good causes funding is uniting communities and supporting some of the most vulnerable people in society, including refugees and asylum seekers fleeing conflict, persecution, and political unrest in their own countries.
2023–24 was certainly a solid year for the NLPU overall, and it continued to deliver through an unpredictable external environment, securing yet another year of strong media reach, especially across digital channels. The digital offering of the unit is a pattern which has been going from strength to strength annually, and the NLPU is becoming renowned amongst the family for its innovative approaches to reaching as many people as possible through digital channels and partnerships. None of this would be possible however without a clear strategy and the NLPU’s effective collaboration with members of the wider National Lottery family who contribute these amazing stories and projects.
During 2023–24, the unit also continued to make progress to meet our ambition of telling a better data story and to bring that to the fore. Telling our data story is critical with regards to amplifying the whole National Lottery story.
On 1 February 2024, Allwyn UK took over as the new licence operator of The National Lottery. The new National Lottery licence heralds an exhilarating new chapter, and we’re delighted to welcome Allwyn as we embark on this exciting journey together. We really look forward to working with them on what is set to be a monumental year for The National Lottery as we celebrate our 30th Birthday in 2024 and look forward to our funded athletes competing in the Olympic and Paralympic games in Paris.
I would also like to take this opportunity to thank Camelot who, since launching The National Lottery in 1994, have enabled lottery players to collectively raise £48bn for good causes in the UK, transforming lives and contributing to the arts, sport, heritage, and communities.
The NLPU plays an important role in delivering Allwyn’s overall vision by highlighting exactly how The National Lottery is ‘changing lives every day’, and showcasing the good that playing The National Lottery does. The unit remains fully focused on this task.
On behalf of the Management Board, I would like to thank the NLPU for their ongoing commitment to serve our stakeholders and delivering success on behalf of The National Lottery family. I am also grateful to all my Board colleagues for their contributions this last year. We now renew our focus on delivering yet more high quality innovative and creative campaigns.
Darren Henley, CEO Arts Council England, Chair of
the National Lottery Promotions Unit Management Board
1 To increase awareness of the breadth, scale, and impact of National Lottery funding across the UK.
2 To promote the values of The National Lottery and increase positivity towards the good causes The National Lottery supports at a local and national level.
3 To reach as many people as possible in the UK in telling that story.
4 To champion One National Lottery best practice across The National Lottery family.
(see Appendix A page 40 & Appendix B page 41)
The entire portfolio of campaigns delivered by the NLPU in the last financial year is underpinned by its Strategic Framework and Plan 2023–25 and Strategic Plan 2023–24. The activities were encompassed by the four Management Board priorities identified, including:
1 Data - making better use of data to tell the National Lottery story.
2 Public Affairs - ensuring the NLPU shares evidence of its collective impact/ achievements effectively across UK Government, devolved Governments in the nations where appropriate.
3 Communication - ensuring distributors and the wider family support cross-cutting campaigns run by NLPU and amplify them with their own activity.
4 Grantee acknowledgement - leveraging support from our grant holders to highlight National Lottery impact.
Significant progress has been made against the objectives and Management Board priorities in the plan last year. This annual review highlights how the NLPU has delivered against them.
The NLPU continues to work closely with Strategy Directors to ensure it is aligned with any emerging thematic area of joint family activity identified for 2024 and beyond.
After reviewing the existing framework and plan, the NLPU has developed its new Strategic Framework for 2024–27 which encompasses the new National Lottery licence period and includes the 30th Birthday in 2024 and the Olympic and Paralympic Games (see Annex B page 41).
2023/24 OBJECTIVES & IMPACT
6 CAMPAIGNS
28,215 PIECES OF MEDIA COVERAGE
3.38 BILLION MEDIA REACH 16.13 MILLION OWNED SOCIAL MEDIA IMPRESSIONS
538 MILLION POTENTIAL SOCIAL MEDIA CAMPAIGN IMPRESSIONS NEWS
The NLPU achieved a total of 28,215 pieces of media coverage in 2023–24 (down from 70,736 in 2022–23 and 94,469 in 2021–22) with a reach of 3.38 billion across both national and regional outlets across 6 campaigns. The coverage was 100% positive this year (which is up by 0.75% compared to last year).
Although there has been a reduction in the number of clippings this year, this is still a substantial haul of coverage, and an impressive audience reach secured. The reduction in traditional media coverage overall can also be attributed to several key factors, including:
• Fewer campaigns delivered this year (9 in 2022–23 compared with 6 in 2023–24) due to the fact there were no major sporting events such as Olympics, Paralympics, Winter Games, and Commonwealth Games in 2023 or the first quarter of 2024. These campaigns have traditionally secured the lions’ share of coverage for the NLPU and were a pertinent feature of the media calendar between 2021 and 2022 for the NLPU.
• More focus on targeted campaigns and media activities which resonate well with National Lottery players and capture the mood of the nation.
• A sharper focus on delivering targeted digital first content, which is an area of substantial growth for the NLPU.
This year, 98% of media items hit key messages (up from the 95.25% achieved in 2022–23). This is likely due to the NLPU’s increased focus on improving media relations to achieve greater awareness of One National Lottery messaging and Grant Acknowledgement across The National Lottery family. 28,215
As discussed, a continuous area of growth over several years for the NLPU is the digital sphere. The NLPU has more than doubled impressions on its owned social media channels in comparison to last year.
Through organic and paid content on the NLPU social media channels, over 16.13 million impressions (the number of times your content is shown in a social media feed) were secured this year, up from 8.8 million in 22/23, 4.69 million in 2021/22, 4.6 million in 2020/21.
The increase can be partially attributed to adopting a more collaborative approach, including working with key distributors, athletes and talent on certain social media posts and increasing the budgets of paid adverts on Meta (Facebook and Instagram). This has enabled content to be viewed by a larger and more targeted audience.
On channels beyond the NLPU’s owned channels (generated through paid partnerships), over 42.9 million impressions were achieved, bringing the total social media impressions to 59 million.
The increase in overall social impressions this year is attributed to the focus on placing content on external channels and using paid partnerships to increase wider reach. The figures for 2023–24 demonstrate an impressive level of reach and impressions across social channels, which remains an area of continuous growth for the NLPU.
The National Lottery Good Causes website achieved over 1.3 million (1,308,896) page views in 2023–24. Whilst this is a reduction in numbers from the previous year’s 2.8 million, and the 1.4 million page views in 2021–22, the lower page views this year can most likely be attributed to the lack of a broadcast partner for the National Lottery Open Week campaign in 2023–24, which is where most views have come from historically.
In 2023–24, the "potential" impressions delivered (e.g. impressions achieved through its campaign hashtags) were nearly 538 million (537,600,000), up from 509 million impressions in 2022–23, 451.7 million impressions in 2021–22, and 82.8 million impressions in 2020–21. This is a substantial increase (especially since there were no Olympic, Paralympic or Commonwealth Games activities—significant campaigns which help boost numbers) and demonstrates that the NLPUs digital sphere is working, expanding, and resonating well with its audiences.
The NLPU constantly evaluates its digital strategy, and the team has a robust content plan in place to produce engaging public facing assets throughout the year, working effectively with the wider National Lottery family and external partners, across all channels, to deliver comprehensive results.
16.13M IMPRESSIONS ON SOCIAL CHANNELS
538M
‘POTENTIAL’ IMPRESSIONS ON SOCIAL CHANNELS
The NLPU’s external impact has contributed to the following outcomes for The National Lottery (TNL) according to figures from the licence operator:
67.6% OF PEOPLE AGREE THAT TNL SUPPORTS MEANINGFUL CAUSES
between Apr-23 to Dec-23 (66.6% in 2022-23, 65.5% in 2021–22, and 65.5% in 2020–21).
80.7% OF PEOPLE AGREE THAT TNL SUPPORTS GOOD CAUSES
between Apr-23 to Dec-23 (80.5% in 2022–23, 80.1% in 2021–22, and 80.3% in 2020–21).
OVERALL BRAND POSITIVITY IS 48.5%
BETWEEN APR23 TO DEC-23
driven by ensuring players feel proud to play and offering value from compelling events (46.2% in 2022–23, 47.7% in 2021–22, and 47.5% in 2020–21).
30.8% OF PEOPLE AGREEING TNL BENEFITS THEIR LOCAL AREA
between Apr-23 to Dec-23 (30.1% in 2022–23, 29.4% in 2021–22, and 28% in 2020–21).
Every single day, The National Lottery makes a massive positive impact on people’s lives in villages, towns, and cities across the UK, helping communities and organisations to thrive.
Through a number of bespoke campaigns and initiatives designed to showcase The National Lottery’s role in national life, and to thank players for their all-important contribution, the NLPU worked closely with the wider National Lottery family in 2023–24 to drive home the relevance and positivity of good causes funded.
Across multiple campaigns and activities, the NLPU worked with each distributor to support and amplify the pan-National Lottery message, with a digital focus at the forefront. This included Identifying themes and stories for campaigns and developing and delivering key media moments around major events such as the Eurovision Song Contest held in Liverpool, the King’s Coronation, and the 2023 FIFA Women’s Football World Cup.
The National Lottery Awards are the annual search for the UKs favourite National Lottery-funded people and projects. Running from April–December 2023, the campaign once again celebrated the amazing people and projects who do extraordinary things with the help of good cause funding.
A judging panel comprising members of The National Lottery family and media partners selected the individual winners of the Community & Charity, Arts, Culture & Film, Heritage, Sport, Environment, Special Achievement and Young Hero categories. A public vote took place to determine The National Lottery Project of the Year (which saw 20,383 votes cast in comparison to 14,896 in 2022).
Championed by Awards ambassador, Samantha Womack (of Eastenders fame), between April and May 2023, the public were encouraged to nominate their favourite unsung heroes from around the UK. Samantha, a breast cancer survivor, launched the nomination phase at a National Lottery funded breast cancer charity, Yes To Life, securing sofa slots on Good Morning Britain and ITV Evening News. A further media partnership with Reach Plc (funded by Camelot) with a call to action to garner public nominations from a wide UK audience, led to a strong media cut-through and an impressive total of 3,780 public nominations, compared to 1,300 in 2022.
The campaign culminated in a series of Winner Reveal media days, where carefully selected talent ambassadors (including Sir Tony Robinson, Martin Kemp, Brenda Edwards, Ray Mears, Keith Duffy, Gary Lightbody and Jane Danson) surprised National Lottery Award winners across the UK. In addition, projects who polled highest in each of the nations were crowned as regional winners. Naturalist and TV Presenter, Iolo Williams, visited the Wales Project of the Year to present them with their special award, securing significant broadcast coverage.
Campaign broadcast highlights included live interviews throughout the UK on Sky Sports News and TalkSport, as well as featured segments on STV, UTV, BBC Wales, BBC Look North, BBC South, ITV Meridian, and ITV Granada.
A continuation of the Reach Plc media partnership also saw winners and ambassadors profiled across their main titles including the Daily Mirror, Daily Express and Daily Star to conclude the campaign.
The campaign was enhanced across digital channels this year, thanks to a digital partnership with social media publishers, KOMI, who delivered eight bespoke short films on the winners to a wide audience across their channels. Targeting the 18–35 demographic, the films performed exceptionally well and yielded combined figures of 16.5 million views (compared to 5 million views the previous year) and a reach of 25.7 million across KOMI channels such as It’s Gone Viral and Happiest.
On the NLPUs own owned channels, the campaign hashtag, #NLAwards, generated 33 million impressions with a reach of 6.5 million, a significant improvement on the previous year.
New to this year, and as part of the Digital Partnership with KOMI, a research survey was conducted with KOMI’s audience to understand the impact of The National Lottery Awards 2023 campaign. This was the first time that the NLPU had conducted this type of digital impact assessment for the Awards, which indicated a 6% increase in brand awareness and a 16% increase in awareness that The National Lottery supports good causes among respondents.
In a standout moment for the National Lottery Awards 2023, the winners were also invited to the Houses of Parliament in Westminster to address MPs and major industry stakeholders about their win. This proved to be an effective way of communicating the stories of unsung National Lottery heroes to prominent elected officials, and a similar model will be adopted in future years. In addition, The National Lottery Awards 2023 were also nominated and shortlisted for the UK Media Relations Campaign of the Year at the PRmoment Awards.
111M+ UK RESIDENTS REACHED THROUGH BROADCAST CHANNELS
16.5M VIEWS FOR FILMS PRODUCED WITH DIGITAL PARTNER
20,383 VOTES CAST FOR PROJECTS
3,780 NOMINATIONS
1,291 POSITIVE PIECES OF TRADITIONAL MEDIA COVERAGE
16% INCREASE IN AWARENESS THE NATIONAL LOTTERY SUPPORTS GOOD CAUSES
To celebrate and capitalise on the Eurovision song contest being hosted in Liverpool on behalf of Ukraine in May 2023, the NLPU delivered a bespoke activity to highlight how National Lottery funding is supporting refugees throughout the UK, as well as supporting the arts, community, and heritage projects. The aim was to target high profile broadcast coverage, reach vast audiences and positively raise awareness of the impact of National Lottery funding in supporting Eurovision themed projects.
To deliver this activity, the NLPU partnered up with the 1993 Eurovision Song Contest runner up, Sonia (who hails from Merseyside) and the National Lottery funded European Youth Music Refugee Choir (EYMRC).
The EYMRC brings together young refugees and asylum seekers living in England, enabling them to meet new people in a fun way whilst developing crucial skills needed to continue living in a new country. The choir has a large contingent of Ukrainian refugee members in its ranks.
53M+ REACHED ACROSS 2,000 PIECES OF MEDIA COVERAGE
372,000
VIEWS FOR SOCIAL MEDIA CONTENT PRODUCED BY THE NLPU
In April 2023, the NLPU arranged for Sonia and the choir to take part in a rehearsal day at the Adelphi Hotel in Liverpool, where a raft of social media and news content was gathered, including interviews and photo shoots with choir members, and some of the Ukrainian refugees involved.
A separate media day was then arranged at the National Lottery funded Everyman Theatre in Liverpool, two weeks before Eurovision, where Sonia and the choir performed her 1989 number 1 hit song ‘You’ll Never Stop Me from Lovin’ You’ in front of the invited media. Media outlets had the opportunity to interview Sonia and various refugees in the choir.
To deliver further substantial reach, in the weeks leading up to Eurovision Song Contest on Saturday May 13, a series of bespoke interviews features with the refugees were issued to the media. In addition, the NLPU worked with a media partner to produce and syndicate a range of features on some of other projects relating to Eurovision funded by The National Lottery across the UK. 2,088 individual pieces of media coverage were secured across print, online and broadcast platforms in total, with a media reach of more than 53 million (53,014,917) UK residents.
TV coverage from the media day included ITV Granada, BBC North-West Tonight, Channel 5, and GB News. Radio coverage which landed all key messaging, included BBC Radio Merseyside, BBC Radio Devon—Global Media— whose nationwide network includes Capital, Heart, LBC, Radio X, Gold and Smooth—and Bauer Media—whose nationwide network includes Absolute, Greatest Hits, Kerrang, Kiss and Magic—were also in attendance to conduct their own interviews.
Editorially, coverage was also secured with national titles such as the Daily Star, Daily Express and Metro.
To maximise the digital footprint, the social media assets produced during rehearsals were launched in sequence with the media day, with Sonia, the National Lottery family, and other stakeholders posting and sharing the content across their channels. The content produced for the NLPU for its own owned channels, was boosted with adverts across Facebook and Instagram. This generated views of 372,556 with an engagement rate of 54,781, which is substantially higher than the views and engagement rate the NLPU would traditionally expect to see without boosting content.
Insights also showed that 83% of the ads were viewed by women between the ages of 25–34, which is within the NLPU target age group, and shows the content resonated well amongst this group.
To celebrate the King’s Coronation on May 6th, 2023, whilst raising awareness of National Lottery funding to projects throughout the UK which were marking the historical occasion in various ways, the NLPU partnered with a UK top 10 social media publisher, KOMI, to create and publish content to sit on the publishers’ own owned channels with views, reach and engagement in the millions.
Through emotive social-first story-telling content, and by generating significant level of earned regional traditional media coverage, the aim was to unite the National Lottery family during a significant national moment of celebration.
For this project, KOMI utilised their It's Gone Viral and Happiest social channels to distribute content across their Facebook, Instagram and TikTok communities in the build up to, and during the month of the Coronation. Four projects which had strong human-interest stories that appealed to a mass audience were chosen, representing art, community, sport, and heritage sectors. The aim was to engage audiences beyond the parameters of the Coronation.
DIGITAL-FIRST STORY-TELLING CONTENT SERIES
12M VIEWS FOR DIGITAL CONTENT AND 60,000 ORGANIC ENGAGEMENTS
19M+ REACHED THROUGH 1,000 PIECES OF MEDIA COVERAGE
The compelling human-interest led digital first campaign aimed to appeal to a variety of audiences, with a focus on a target audience of 18–35 year olds. Four hero videos up to 5 minutes in length were produced, due to KOMI insights at the time showing Facebook, Instagram and TikTok audiences favoured longer form content.
The campaign saw a large over-delivery against the original key performance indicators of video views (8.9 million views and a 70% UK audience).
There were over 12 million views for all content, over delivering by 3 million against the original KPI. There were also more than 60,000 organic engagements with the content. 5.5 million views were organic, which demonstrates the content resonated well with audiences.
In addition to the digital content, the NLPU also worked with a media partner to produce and syndicate traditional media content to ensure stories reached as wide an audience as possible throughout the UK (online, print and broadcast).
Eight projects funded by various distributors and one UK-wide release were published in the week leading up to the Coronation on May 6th, generating almost 1,000 (955) individual pieces of coverage across print and online platforms, a total readership of more the 19 million (19,336,054). A geographical heatmap produced demonstrated that the content appeared across all corners of the UK and showcased an overwhelmingly positive sentiment to millions of regional readers.
The NLPU’s Sports Campaigns focus on major events in the sporting calendar and utilises them as a platform to demonstrate to National Lottery players how their funding makes a real positive difference to sport at all levels— from grassroots to elite. The focus for the NLPU in 2023–24 was on the FIFA Women’s Football World Cup and a look ahead to the Olympic and Paralympic Games in France next year via the Road to Paris 2023–24 campaign.
In the summer of 2023, all eyes were on the Lionesses ahead of the FIFA Women’s World Cup. The NLPU took the opportunity to highlight The National Lottery’s significant investment in grassroots women’s football at a time when there was significantly increased interest in the sport.
With a strategy to target the 18–35 year old demographic, the NLPU undertook a partnership with a leading social publisher—Jungle Creations. The socialfirst series showcased four National Lottery funded women’s football projects, demonstrating why they are so integral to communities across the UK, and getting to know the people at the heart of each club.
The episodes played out across Jungle’s Instagram and TikTok accounts; VT (4M followers on Instagram and 2.4M on TikTok) and Four Nine (69K followers on Instagram and 391K on TikTok) focusing on Minds United, Brighton Seagals FC, Gateshead Lion Lasses and the Actonians FC in the lead up to the World Cup—all four clubs had received vital National Lottery funding over the years.
• All videos hit over the benchmark for engagement, particularly on Tik Tok.
• 68% of audience views were in the target demographic of 18–34 year olds, our target.
• A piece of consumer research run by Jungle to measure the impact the campaign had on exposed audiences, pre and post series showed a 15% average uplift in awareness of National Lottery funding to good causes and an 18% average uplift in perception of National Lottery funding providing positive opportunities for women in local communities.
• 4.05M UK views and 4.2M UK impressions across x 4 pieces of digital content.
• 29K engagements—a 15% over delivery against the KPIs.
The aim of the 2023/2024 sport campaign was to lay the best possible foundations for the Olympics and Paralympics in Paris in the summer of 2024. The Games presented a huge opportunity to promote The National Lottery brand and the significant investment that has been made, not only elite, but sport at every level.
The aim of The Road to Paris campaign was to increase awareness of the scale and success of National Lottery funding to sport—high performance and grassroots—across the UK at a local and national level.
The NLPU were able to generate an impressive drumbeat of media coverage and digital content to make National Lottery players better aware of the role they’ve played supporting GB athletes, as well as highlighting National Lottery investment into grassroots sport.
By organising key athlete media days, the NLPU activated around two key landmarks; the one year to go (OYTG) until Paris in July/August 2023 and the 6 months to go (6MTG) in January/February 2024. The team also utilised other sporting events throughout the year to use as a media hook to showcase a clear link between investment in sport and athletes, not just at elite level, but also at a community grassroots level, as well as to build excitement for Paris 2024.
This media coverage, alongside syndicated athlete interviews, achieved a healthy spread of national and regional print, online and broadcast coverage, as well as content for our digital channels. The strategy to collaborate on social media with athletes and the national governing bodies of sports enabled the NLPU to push its content to new audiences, significantly improving its engagement on social media.
Three editorial media partnerships were also secured with The Metro, The Daily Mail and The Sun, which followed a plethora of athletes, both Olympic and Paralympic, on their journeys to Paris. These partnerships are continuing into the 2024–25 campaign in the lead up to the Games.
• 19,161 pieces of traditional media coverage between August 2023 and March 2024.
• The coverage included 320 national print and online pieces; 18,500 regional print online pieces; 7 national broadcast and 334 regional broadcast pieces.
• Sixteen athlete media days with sporting heroes such as Helen Glover, Josh Kerr, Eugene Amo-Dadzie, Jody Cundy, Charlotte Henshaw, Matty Lee, Hannah Cockroft, Kieran Reilly, Alice Kinsella and Caden Cunningham.
• Media days resulted in coverage across Sky Sports News, The Guardian, The Independent, The Daily Star, The Daily Mirror, The Daily Express, CNN World Sport, LBC and multiple ITV and BBC regional TV/ radio stations.
• Earned editorial partnership with The Daily Mail has so far accomplished 8 pieces (5 print and 3 online) with a reach of 61 million.
• Earned editorial partnership with The Sun has so far achieved 35 pieces (10 print and 25 online) with a reach of 80 million.
• The Metro partnership has so far achieved 45 pieces (30 print and 15 online) with a reach of 51 million. These pieces featured first person interviews with athletes Max Whitlock, Jake Wightman and Andrea Spendolini-Sirieix on their road to Paris 2024.
• On NLPUs own owned channels, a total 1.2 million impressions, with a reach of 1.1 million, and 239,000 video views were achieved.
Each year the NLPU, alongside the operator, leads The National Lottery family to deliver a major consumer facing campaign to coincide with the anniversary of the first National Lottery draw in November.
The 2023 campaign was divided into four parts that leant into significant cultural moments which naturally attracted media attention, and where The National Lottery had a credible and authentic story to tell.
1. A big hit – Celebrating the 2023 Rugby Union World Cup
The activities kicked off in September to mark the 2023 Rugby Union World Cup. Four rugby legends, Matt Dawson, Stephen Ferris, Alun Wyn Jones and Rory Lawson, visited grassroots clubs of current internationals in each of the home nations to highlight the importance of National Lottery funding to grassroots sports.
2. Walk of Stars – Honouring the National Lottery’s contribution to British film
In October, to coincide with the London Film Festival, the NLPU created The National Lottery Walk of Stars at the Southbank. The installation celebrated talented National Lottery film makers ranging from up-andcoming directors and producers to more established names like Gurinder Chadha (Bend It Like Beckham 2002) and Charlotte Regan (Scrapper 2023).
3. Black History Month – Celebrating the contribution of the Windrush generation
In commemoration of Black History Month and the 75th anniversary Windrush, a wireframe recreation of the vessel was unveiled at Tilbury Docks. The unique artwork was decorated with portraits of five individuals who used National Lottery funding to celebrate the Windrush generation and their impact on communities. It was unveiled by singer and TV presenter Scarlette Douglas, whose grandparents moved to London from Jamaica and whose father was one of the co-founders of Black History Month UK.
4. COP28 – Habitats of Hope funded by The National Lottery
The campaign concluded with an impressive immersive experience entitled ‘Habitats of Hope’ at London’s Horniman Museum and Gardens which recognised some of the animals and insects which now survive and thrive throughout the UK thanks to National Lottery funded projects. Environmentalist and scientist Liz Bonnin and radio and TV presenter Mollie King launched the weeklong exhibition during COP28.
• Campaign exceeded all KPIs achieving 3,743 pieces of high quality national, regional and local media coverage with a reach in excess of 1.27 billion.
• This included 15 pieces of national broadcast. Notable highlights included appearances on Sky News, Channel Five, Sky Sports, BBC Sport, The Sun, The Daily Express, Daily Mirror and Daily Star.
• Supplemented by strong regional coverage across the UK.
• Digital partnership with social media platform JOE, featured many of inspiring individuals from the campaign. The films were hosted on JOE’s various social media channels attracting more than 8.2 million views.
• The campaign included the traditional cross finger selfie activity where National Lottery funded organisations are encouraged to thank National Lottery players by posting an image of themselves on social media recreating The National Lottery logo. This delivered 70 million impressions with a reach of 12 million and trended on X (formerly known as twitter).
1.27B+ REACHED ACROSS 3,743 PIECES OF MEDIA COVERAGE
15 PIECES OF NATIONAL BROADCAST COVERAGE
8.2M+ VIEWS FOR DIGITAL CONTENT PRODUCED
12M REACH AND TRENDING ON X FOR CROSS FINGER SELFIE DAY
To say thank you for the £30m raised for good causes every week by players, The National Lottery offers free entry and exclusive offers at a range of National Lottery funded venues across the UK as part of the annual initiative National Lottery Open Week.
In 2024, the campaign took place from Saturday 9th to Sunday 17th March. Five hundred National Lottery funded venues from across the UK offered free entry and a range of special deals to players.
Positioned as the curtain raiser to the 30th birthday year, the campaign concept was based on encouraging National Lottery players to open-up and try new experiences.
A successful PR campaign was fronted by comedian and musician, Bill Bailey, and TV personality, Scarlett Moffatt. This resulted in primetime TV coverage on ITV’s Good Morning Britain as well as interviews on a variety of national and regional radio stations including the Chris Moyles Show on Radio X, Heart FM, TalkSport and various BBC local stations. National print media coverage was extensive including interviews in the I, Daily Mail, Daily Star, The Mirror, The Sun and the Express.
1M
REACHED ORGANICALLY THROUGH INFLUENCER CONTENT
800,000+
VISITS TO NATIONAL LOTTERY OPEN WEEK WEBSITE
500,000+
VIDEO VIEWS ACROSS SOCIAL MEDIA
44,000
PROMOTIONS VIA TNL RETAIL OUTLETS AND ON 38 MILLION TNL TICKETS
TV COVERAGE ON ITV’S GOOD MORNING BRITAIN
500
NATIONAL LOTTERY FUNDED VENUES OFFERING FREE ENTRY AND SPECIAL DEALS
This year the NLPU worked in close partnership with several hero partners to help elevate the campaigns’ reach to new audiences including the National Trust, National Trust for Scotland, RSPB, English Heritage, Eden Project, Royal Shakespeare Company, and Imperial War Museums. This resulted in a good year for redemptions for some major partners including over 9,000 visitors to the Eden Project in Cornwall and more than 6000 visitors to English Heritage sites. National Trust properties in England, Wales and Northern Ireland however saw a decline in redemptions at 22,000 compared to 33,000 in 2023 but cited poor weather for the downturn.
To amplify the campaign narrative, a pool of 12 diverse influencers' from across the UK promoted content on social media, with an organic reach of 934,937 (558,709 in 2023). The National Lottery Open Week website achieved 800,000 visits to the website and over 500,000 video views across socials.
National Lottery Open Week 2024 was the first campaign partnership between the NLPU and Allwyn to be rolled out in the fourth licence. In previous years the operator has supported National Lottery Open Week with a comprehensive package of paid media. In 2024 this was replaced by retail and owned channel activation with Allwyn outing Open Week on digital screens in its 44,000 retail outlets and on ticket messaging on over 38 million tickets.
Post campaign research from 2024 shows that Open Week does impact on potential to play: 16% said that they’d be more likely to play because of the promotion. Significantly higher amongst less frequent players and non-players, indicating there is an opportunity to grow player base amongst this audience in 2025.
The NLPU’s award-winning podcast series, ‘Amazing Starts Here’, returned for its second season in 2023.
TV presenter and Olympic gold medal winning hockey player, Sam Quek, was selected as the host. As a former National Lottery funded athlete, Sam brought an additional layer of authenticity and credibility to the role which complimented her engaging and warm presentation style.
The eight episode long run featured inspirational individuals from National Lottery funded projects across all the main funding sectors, including elite athletes Alex Yee and Libby Clegg, and celebrated their transformative impact on their communities throughout the UK.
46,000 DOWNLOADS FOR THE SECOND SERIES OF AMAZING STARTS HERE
ON AMAZON 33,000
SUBSCRIBERS FOR THE AMAZING STARTS HERE PODCAST, AND COUNTING TOP 5–10%
OF ALL PODCASTS WITH SOME EPISODES IN TOP 2–5%
The episodes were marketed on popular podcasting platforms with the aim of driving downloads, subscriptions, and listeners. The podcast achieved a sought-after spot-on Amazon’s ‘Podcasts of the Week’, proving there is strong appetite and audience for the content produced in this market.
The podcast series was bolstered and dovetailed by a robust traditional and social media promotion plan focussing on earned media and owned channels with social media cuts downs placed on the likes of TikTok for the first time.
• Overall, Series 2 of the podcast achieved more than 46,000 downloads—compared to 31,000 for series one and now has more than 33,000 subscribers— up from 14,000 in 2022.
• According to industry standards, these figures put the podcast in the top 5–10 per cent of all podcasts with some individual episodes reaching the top 2–5 per cent bracket.
• On social media, content achieved 336,000 impressions, 339 video views with a reach of more than 187,000 thanks to collaboration with the host, guests, and National Lottery distributors.
• Assets also performed very well on TikTok with one clip achieving 12.6K views.
• The PR campaign secured 598 pieces of coverage with a reach more than 3 million including 13 pieces of national coverage.
• Syndication of news stories from episodes and interviews with Sam Quek resulted in notable coverage including articles in the Independent, Daily Mirror, Daily Star and Reader’s Digest.
One of the areas of work outlined as a priority by the NLPU Management Board is around improving how the NLPU and the wider family can make better use of data to tell the One National Lottery story. This will improve our collective ability to talk about what our funded good causes are achieving.
2023 marked a step-change in the NLPU’s capacity for data analysis and data journalism. Both a Data Journalist and a Data Analyst were appointed by the NLPU in May 2023 to drive this work forward. These appointments are already bearing fruit and are having a positive impact with regards to sharing the One National Lottery data story is concerned—especially around management, analysis, and use of our rich collective data resources.
How
Visual analyses
Data cleaned, interrogated Animated GIFs and Social clips made
Through the National Lottery Data Forum, the NLPU has led a significant review of the quality of the data held in the existing DCMS database. This is currently the only collective source of grants data across all National Lottery funding distributors which spans the entire life of the National Lottery. However, the database has historically suffered from a range of quality issues. The NLPU has identified improvements that would serve to dramatically improve the robustness of the data held in the database. With support across the family and beyond, this programme is now close to delivery. The revised and improved data will be in place to provide support for the planned 30th Birthday programme.
Taking this a step further, the NLPU data team have begun thinking about a long-term data strategy for One National Lottery. Recognition of the need for this arose from consideration of a range of strategic questions—for example, “Do Metropolitan areas get their fair share?”—that are difficult to answer within the current data landscape, but which are becoming increasingly politically relevant. With support from the National Lottery CEO Forum, NLPU has now commissioned consultants to begin the thinking towards a One National Lottery data strategy.
The NLPU has also taken the lead on developing the infrastructure that will provide interim support for Allwyn’s request for a steady supply of Good Cause Summaries. Following a pilot project during the summer of 2023 to test the mechanism for collecting, aggregating, and sharing Good Cause Summaries, the NLPU is now preparing a live set of summaries for Allwyn to use for their launch later in 2024.
This year, the Data Journalist has utilised UK-wide data from the DCMS database, and mined open available data, to create bespoke datasets for various NLPU campaigns and activities. These insights have already informed three of the NLPU’s major campaigns, including The National Lottery Awards. The insights have helped secure broadcast opportunities, where facts were relayed verbatim by talent during interviews; and helped win widespread online and print coverage. Such inputs raise the credibility and authority of messages aired.
How the data journalist worked on a 'grassroots rugby theme' to help the Cross-Distributor campaign
Data insights shared. Talent echoed insights in TV interviews
Interviewed the head of the sport's global governing body
Data storytelling (web feature, syndication, interactive data storymap with video)
Grantee acknowledgement—especially leveraging support from our grant holders to highlight the National Lottery’s impact, is also a priority area for the Management Board.
The Grant Acknowledgement Forum with representatives from the NLPU and all distributors was formed in October 2022 to explore ways to step change the approach to how beneficiaries acknowledge The National Lottery, to increase brand awareness and positivity.
There has been significant progress in this area. With all distributors having addressed their approach to large beneficiaries, they are now taking strides to ensure that National Lottery funding is acknowledged more frequently amongst smaller and medium sized grants.
Distributors undertook important work to improve and enhance National Lottery grant acknowledgement in 2023, and the October 2023 Home Affairs Select Committee Report is a great reflection of the commitment and progress shown across the family. Some examples include:
• The National Lottery Community Fund – will ensure that all new £1m+ grant holders are provided with a communications protocol spelling out the expectations over the lifetime of their award.
• Creative Scotland – has re-branded its Open Funds to the National Lottery Open Fund for Organisations and the National Lottery Extended Programme Fund.
• Arts Council Wales – are introducing new monitoring reports to ensure that organisations have fulfilled the branding ask—namely to prominently display the National Lottery logo both physically and digitally, and to secure media and social media coverage for their funded projects.
• UK Sport – is planning and designing an induction programme for athletes, to include National Lottery messaging.
• Sport Northern Ireland – is developing a new grant acknowledgement webpage and toolkit which will include brand guidelines, logos, press release templates and National Lottery key messages for use by grant recipients.
• The BFI – will ensure that all new funds, and those that exist already, have revised application and branding guidelines for recipients that set out why acknowledging the National Lottery is so important, as well as the BFI’s expectations for National Lottery branding.
The National Lottery’s 30th Birthday and Paris 2024 provides us with an important opportunity to continue the fantastic work already undertaken by distributors, and to encourage recipients to acknowledge The National Lottery in-line with these significant and exciting events.
The NLPU Management Board determines the budget on an annual basis. In 2023/24, the NLPU worked to a budget of £3,297,247.97. This amount reflected the increased budget available to the NLPU under The Fourth National Lottery Licence which came into effect on 1 February 2024.
The operator is liable for one third of the budget with the remaining two thirds deducted from the contribution payable to the Secretary of State. Payments to the NLPU which the Licensee is required to make are covered under Condition 13.6 of The Fourth National Lottery Licence.
INCOME: £3,330,267 EXPENDITURE: £3,232,279 UNDERSPEND: £92,237
CAMPAIGN BUDGETS
CROSS-DISTRIBUTOR PROGRAMME: £650,000
NATIONAL LOTTERY AWARDS: £358,500
NATIONAL LOTTERY 30TH BIRTHDAY: £300,000
SPORT: £300,000
KING’S CORONATION: £100,000
EUROVISION: £21,500
OPEN WEEK: £281,551
STAFFING, OPERATIONAL & ADMINISTRATION COSTS: £929,696
Vision
The NLPU has developed its Strategic Framework for 2024–27. By 2027, working alongside the whole NL family, the vision is to showcase the extraordinary positive impact good causes funding has across every corner of the UK, to increase overall levels of consideration to play, awareness of good cause funding and positivity towards the National Lottery brand.
Target objectives:
1. Grow consideration to play The National Lottery amongst players and non-players, through delivering campaigns (e.g. 30th Birthday);
2. Increase awareness of the breadth, scale and impact of National Lottery funding at a local and national level;
3. Increase positivity towards The National Lottery brand.
Enabling objectives:
1. Reach defined target audiences in the UK in telling that story at scale and;
2. Align with the operator and distributors on specific consumer campaigns to support One National Lottery’s business objectives.
The activities for 2024–27 are encompassed by the four Management Board priorities identified which are:
1. Data
• Work alongside TNL family to enhance data insights and data storytelling;
• Create an effective flow of data across the family;
• Continuously improve mechanisms across the family to supply Allwyn’s CRM-based comms with content;
• Evolve the National Lottery database to provide a coherent and insightful aggregated view of grants data.
2. Digital
• Deliver ambitious digital strategy through high impact partnerships aimed at hard-to-reach younger audiences;
• Grow content creation of owned channels across TNL family to increase reach, particularly of new and hyperlocal audiences;
• Innovate and share best practice.
3. Grant Acknowledgement
• Champion One National Lottery & support internal communications across the family;
• Work with family & operator to strengthen brand acknowledgement by grantees;
• Optimise value of Allwyn’s CRM-based comms for grant acknowledgement.
4. Impact
• Help to showcase the value of TNL funding to external audiences through better data storytelling;
• Strengthen the use of impact assessment across the family;
• Establish an impact-based framework of ONL value-for-money KPIs.
The NLPU’s primary focus for 2024 is leading and delivering the 30th Birthday Programme, working closely with National Lottery family members and some of the UK’s leading creative agencies.
Since the first draw was held in 1994, The National Lottery has raised over £48 billion for good causes and awarded over 685,000 individual grants to projects and organisations, making a real difference to local communities.
Thanks to our players, over the last 30 years, we have been able to strengthen local communities, power sports teams, support environmental projects, unleash creative talent, empower the elderly, and unlock young people's potential.
The National Lottery’s 30th Birthday is a landmark moment and opportunity to celebrate the incredible positive difference The National Lottery has made— and continues to make—to the lives of people and communities throughout the whole of the UK.
The simple, yet universally recognised phrase, 'Game Changer', is the unifying creative thought and message behind the campaign. This phrase neatly encapsulates the impact the National Lottery funding has—and gives the NLPU total flexibility on the stories of change it can tell. It also dovetails nicely with the operator, Allwyn’s, overarching brand position—‘Changing Lives Every Day’.
Through the 30th Birthday Game Changer programme, the NLPU will generate growth in positivity towards The National Lottery brand and secure significant coverage across multiple channels via local, regional, and national media.
Managed by the NLPU, a comprehensive programme of PR and Marketing activations is currently being developed to celebrate the 30th Game Changer campaign. Game Changer will be underpinned by data / evidence base (facts, figures, and stories) demonstrating the value of the National Lottery UK over the last 30 years. Game Changer will seek to inspire the next generation of good causes and players.
A broad public affairs programme will be delivered in sequence to engage and celebrate the Birthday with key stakeholders and decision makers across the UK. Whilst the NLPU is leading the delivery of the PR and Marketing campaign, the 30th birthday is an opportunity for all distributors, projects, and supporters to celebrate the impact The National Lottery has had and deliver a magnificent 30th Birthday celebration.
The 30th Birthday Game Changer campaign provides a golden opportunity to elevate the long-established National Lottery Awards and mark the extraordinary contribution of The National Lottery to life in the UK.
Dovetailed exclusively with the 30th Birthday programme, this year’s Awards promise to be extra special and celebratory and will reflect on the National Lottery’s 30-year legacy. The Awards will be looking to find 30 inspirational ‘Game Changers’ who represent the scale and impact of National Lottery funding over the past 30 years. These Game Changers will be people from all walks of life, from every corner of the UK, who together represent all facets of National Lottery funding across arts, community, heritage, and sport.
The nomination phase of the Game Changer campaign will run from 20th May–17th June, supported by talent ambassadors and media and digital partnerships, to garner public awareness and nominations.
From May until July the NLPU will collaborate with a research team and representatives from across the National Lottery family to select the Game Changers. These 30 inspirational individuals will be celebrated though a series of awe-inspiring activations during the Autumn, which will turn iconic buildings and natural landscapes into a storytelling canvas, as part of the 30th Birthday creative campaign.
Building on the success of previous NLPU Olympic and Paralympic campaigns, and the foundations laid during The Road to Paris 2023–2024, the Paris 2024 campaign will be focused on delivering storytelling driven activity which aims to make an emotional connection with audiences.
The NLPU will shine a spotlight on our athletes’ aspirations, struggles and sacrifices; the highs and lows of what it takes to complete at the highest level and do this through a variety of earned and paid media. National Lottery investment will be highlighted front and centre, not only at a high-performance level, but what impact it’s had on participation across the UK.
Whilst bold UK national coverage will be key to cementing The National Lottery’s place in the Team GB/Paralympics GB success narrative, including the partnerships with the Daily Mail, Sun and Metro, the NLPU will also be taking a hyper local approach and connecting athletes and National Lottery investment into sport to build awareness and positivity at a community level.
Working with key partners such as the operator, National Lottery distributors, National Governing Bodies of Sport, Team GB/Paralympics GB, media partners and agencies, the aim is to deliver a
programme of opportunities to engage the media— regional and national—and deliver positive well messaged coverage and digital content which authentically tells the National Lottery story of investment into sport and Team GB/Paralympics GB athletes from team announcements through to Homecoming.
The apex moment for the campaign will be a two-part documentary with C4, which the NLPU is partnering with Allwyn and British Athletics on, to be aired during a primetime slot directly ahead of the Games. The series will follow nine National Lottery funded GB elite athletes on their journey to the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games. The documentary will be utilised as and additional hook to leverage media and social interest in the immediate run up to the Games.
Through social content direct for Paris, the NLPU aims to reach new audiences through social first activations in 2024. This will be achieved through channels and platforms that have large, engaged followers and viewers, and by engaging the whole National Lottery family on a shared social media moment just ahead of the Games.
In 2025 the NLPU plans to build on the current tried, tested and successful campaign format and continue the work forged with all 12 Lottery distributors over the years.
They will work with National Lottery Open Week hero partners from 2024 (National Trust, English Heritage etc) and seek further ways to capitalise on their audience reach. Our focus will be on reaching local audiences and seeking to ensure a spread of offers across the UK so National Lottery Open Week reaches everyone on their doorstep.
The third series of the NLPU’s podcast, Amazing Starts Here, will return in 2024/25.
The NLPU will work again with podcast production agency, Listen Entertainment, for a new run which will feature inspiring stories of ordinary people who have done extraordinary things with the help of National Lottery funding.
As with all of the campaigns and activities for 2024, the intention is to align the series with the Game Changer 30th Birthday campaign and to continue to evolve and adapt using the learnings from the previous two seasons.
This will include making greater use of social media assets, including filming content from the podcast recording sessions with projects and individuals.
Once again, the target market for the podcast will be predominantly a younger one—ages 18–25, but each episode will celebrate individuals and projects which can be related to by people of all ages.
The NLPU will market the series on popular podcasting platforms and the aim is to have the podcast listened to by as large and relevant audience as possible.
This will be complimented by a promotion via traditional social media on NLPU and the National Lottery family’s own channels, those of the guests and the chosen host.
The 30th Birthday provides an important moment to refine and improve the way we ask recipients to acknowledge The National Lottery.
In 2024, we want to ensure that each organisation that receives National Lottery funding is fully engaged in amplifying the 30th Birthday, with the intention that the work we do this year provides a blueprint for best-practise grant acknowledgement now and into the future.
There is an understanding that the 30th Birthday ‘ask’ of recipients needs to be tailored to smaller and larger grantees, and the NLPU have been working with distributors to identify:
• Recipients that should become showcase organisations, to help communicate and celebrate the impact of The National Lottery over the last 30 years as part of the creative campaign.
• Targeted stakeholders to engage so they can selfmobilise and tell the 30th Birthday story through their own communications teams.
• Recipients who should access the 30th Birthday Toolkit as part of our ongoing commitment to grant acknowledgement.
The NLPU will be working with distributors to engage with both small and large recipients in plenty of time to inform their planning, to reach as many people as possible across the UK in telling the story of National Lottery impact over the last 30 years.
The work of the NLPU Data Team this year has laid the foundations for a growing range of future data work.
In early summer, the NLPU will receive the recommendations from consultants on the path to a One National Lottery data strategy.
Led by NLPU, but spanning the whole National Lottery family, this is likely to lead in to a substantial, staged development programme over several years, the results of which will be more integrated and much richer grants data to provide robust evidence for our collective strategic planning.
The consultants’ recommendations will include specific suggestions for the future of the DCMS National Lottery Grants Database and for the development of a more permanent mechanism to support the Good Cause Summaries Allwyn need. Both streams of work will need considerable input and leadership from NLPU.
As the data infrastructure improves in its quality and richness, this will, in turn, allow NLPU to play an evergreater role in the development of an intelligence base to inform One National Lottery strategy development and engagement with politicians in national, regional and local government.
For 2024, the Data Journalist has also produced deep data dives, creating six special projects that feed in to the 30th Birthday efforts. Their aims include elevating the credibility and authority of the National Lottery’s storytelling. All six projects humanise the data, focussing on the impacts from 30 years of funding to good causes.
Looking further ahead, the Data Journalist will build the data-driven storytelling offer. And wider work will develop, such as a plan to upskill the Data Forum on data storytelling, helping optimise the foundational data work that is already progressing in 2024–25.
Over the last 12 months, the NLPU has made great strides to deliver on its Strategic Framework and Strategic Plan.
The dial is certainly shifting in the right direction for the NLPU and their mantra of delivering fewer, bigger and better campaigns is working well for the National Lottery family. There is still some work to do with regards to highlighting the outcomes and impact of campaigns, but the unit has a plan in place and is already making positive strides with regards to the way it evaluates its campaigns now and in the future.
As the operator of the Fourth Licence, over the course of a 10-year period, Allwyn’s vision is for The National Lottery to change lives every day by increasing the amount that goes to good causes. Allwyn’s plans for a modernised National Lottery will no doubt help fund so many good causes in the long term, supporting us as we make the magic of The National Lottery even greater than before. The NLPU, as always, will play a key role in telling those stories.
The NLPU Data Team have shown how important this work is and how much effort is still required to improve the picture across The National Lottery family. The National Lottery Forum is already working closely with Allwyn on the issue of data sharing to allow Allwyn to better connect Good Causes activity with point of sale. As we strive for a better, scalable data platform to improve the way we tell the National Lottery story, we will continue to build on this area of important work.
Transitioning from the third National Lottery licence to the fourth licence also presents an opportunity to
further strengthen grant acknowledgement with the new operator. Allwyn and the National Lottery Forum also want to work closely with the distributors to use grant recipients to support the growth of the National Lottery brand.
The focus for the NLPU in 2024–25 is to deliver an amazing 30th Birthday to celebrate three decades of National Lottery funding to good causes. Whilst the NLPU is leading the delivery of the PR and Marketing campaign, the 30th birthday is an opportunity for all distributors, projects, and supporters to celebrate the impact.
Building on the comprehensive success of the Commonwealth Games campaign, Paris 2024 is another golden opportunity to show the difference the National Lottery is making. I wish all the best to our funded athletes on the World Class Programme who are competing at the Games. The NLPU will again be at the tip of the spear with regards to highlighting how National Lottery funding has, is, and will continue to build solid foundations for our sporting heroes.
The performance of the NLPU this year has been pleasing across all identified strategic objectives and priorities, and the new Strategic Framework and Plan 2024-27 provides a clear way forward and a clarity of purpose. We should always aim high and strive for a high degree of resilience and success. The NLPU has certainly done that in 2023-24 and the Management Board is now looking forward to this next exciting chapter.
GUIDING ONE NATIONAL LOTTERY PRINCIPLES OF NLPU
STAKEHOLDERS & EXTERNAL AUDIENCES
By 2027, working alongside the whole NL family, we will showcase the extraordinary positive impact Good Causes funding has across every corner of the UK, to increase overall levels of consideration to play, awareness of good cause funding and positivity towards the brand.
The National Lottery Promotions Unit (NLPU) raises positive public awareness of National Lottery funding, thereby contributing to the overall brand health of The National Lottery. We do this through storytelling by demonstrating where National Lottery funding has been delivered and showcasing the impact, particularly at a local level, across the UK. We champion One National Lottery best practise and play a lead role in co-ordinating data insights across the National Lottery family.
Target objectives: 1. Grow consideration to play The National Lottery amongst players and nonplayers, through delivering campaigns (e.g. 30th Birthday). 2. Increase awareness of the breadth, scale and impact of National Lottery funding at a local and national level; 3. Increase positivity towards The National Lottery brand; Enabling objectives: 1. Reach defined target audiences in the UK in telling that story at scale and; 2. Align with the operator and distributors on specific consumer campaigns to support One National Lottery's business objectives.
Inclusive - Diverse - Positive - Trustworthy - Solution Focused - Collaborative - Creative - Equitable
Stakeholders: LDB's - NL Projects And Beneficiaries - Gambling Commission - DCMSNLPU Management Board - Operator
External Audiences: NL Players - Non-Player Consumers - Media - Wider GovernmentDevolved Governments
Strategic Framework and Plans 2023–27
Further develop family-wide planning cycles (working with Strategy Directors)
Align with Allwyn and distributor good cause priorities
Gain intelligent insight of impact of NLPU campaign work on behaviour & attitudes National Lottery Awards
TNL30 & birthday moments across family
Sport—Olympic & Paralympic and other major events
National Lottery Open Week
National Lottery Awards
Deliver ambitious digital strategy through high impact partnerships aimed at hard to reach younger audiences
Grow content creation of owned channels across TNL family to increase reach, particularly of new and hyperlocal audiences
Innovate and share best practice
Work alongside TNL family to enhance data insights and data storytelling
Create an effective flow of data across the family
Continuously improve mechanisms across the family to supply Allwyn's CRM-based comms with content
Evolve the National Lottery database to provide a coherent and insightful aggregated view of grants data
Help to showcase the value of TNL funding to external audiences through better data storytelling
Strengthen the use of impact assessment across the family
Establish an impactbased framework of ONL value-formoney KPis
Champion One National Lottery & support internal communications across the family
Work with family & operator to strengthen brand acknowledgement by grantees
Optimise value of Allwyn's CRM-based comms for grant acknowledgement
TARGET OBJECTIVES
ENABLING OBJECTIVES
1. Grown consideration to play The National Lottery amongst players and non-players, through delivering campaigns.
2. Increase awareness of the breadth, scale and impact of National Lottery funding at a local and national level.
3. Increase positivity towards The National Lottery brand.
1. Deliver an ambitious programme of activity to mark the extraordinary contribution of The National Lottery over its first 30 years that aims to create widespread ownership and excitement going into the future.
2. Reach defined target audiences in the UK at scale.
3. Align with the operator and distributors on specific consumer campaigns to support One National Lottery's business objectives.
Data and impact
Initial support for Allwyn's CRM-based comms; Begin remediation of National Lottery grants database
NLPU team day planning session
Developing ONL view of grant data
Lead CEO Data for the Future project
audit; Strategic Framework and draft of annual plan 2025/26
Develop outcomes of CEO Date for the Future project
• Good cause summaries
• DCMS Database
• ONL Data Strategy
Strategic Plan for 2024/25 presented to Mgt Board for approval in Nov; NLPU team day planning session
Begin implementation long term solutions
• Good cause summaries
• DCMS Database
Budget to management for final approval
Begin implementation of ONL Data Strategy