Allwyn stamps mark on National Lottery with ITV partnership

Allwyn has begun to put its own stamp on the UK’s National Lottery by sponsoring a key Saturday night entertainment programme.

Lotto, the National Lottery’s flagship title, will sponsor the ITV show Ant & Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway, which began last Saturday, February 24.

The partnership, Allwyn said, is the next strand of activity from the company’s new “Will you be next?” campaign and will feature until the final episode of the series on April 13.

Bhavit Chandrani, director of BE Studio from ITV, said: “The new ‘Will you be next?’ campaign from Lotto aligns perfectly with Saturday Night Takeaway. Both brands are about play, prizes and fun and will deliver the perfect Saturday night of entertainment for viewers.”

ITV Creative is adapting the Lotto assets to create SNT-personalised idents that “tap into the gamification element of both Lotto and SNT, capturing the fun of play and bringing the sponsorship to life for SNT viewers,” Allwyn said.

The idents will be set in places such as chip shops, cinemas and corner shops and are designed to “build anticipation and ask viewers to guess who could be about to have ‘an unforgettable night.’”

Viewers will see 12 10-second clips across every SNT episode and will hear British comedian Josh Pugh – who voiceovers the “Will you be next?” campaign – as he picks out potential winners from the various settings.

Allwyn’s brand and marketing director Steve Parkinson said SNT will help bring Lotto to a “huge UK TV audience.”

“This was the perfect fit for Lotto because there’s so much shared territory between Lotto and SNT – with games and play at their core,” Parkinson added.

“The partnership also builds on the new Lotto ‘Will you be next?’ campaign that we launched earlier this month and which heralds an exciting new era for Lotto and The National Lottery.”