The National Lottery has returned to its roots by bring back its famous ‘It Could Be You’ strapline after over 25 years, along with the gold pointing hand.
The slogan was first used when the National Lottery launched in November 1994, then run by Camelot group. It was taken over by Allwyn in 2024. The ‘It Could Be You’ advertisement was used to launch the nation’s very first National Lottery game and the tagline became instantly recognisable. It was coupled with a giant pointing hand descending dramatically from the sky indicating that anyone could win.
The marketing push is aiming to raise awareness of the Lotto brand – as the Lottery’s flagship brand is now known as – and to showcase real people winning and support an optimistic nation that is longing for a bit of hope and ‘what if’ belief moments.
The campaign features real Lotto millionaire winners from across the years in cameo roles declaring “We won, and you could too!”. Allwyn has also refreshed the of the Lotto game. September’s Lotto Must Be Won event of a £15m jackpot on Saturday 13th September is being supported by the new branding and point of sale.
Real Lotto winners feature in the adverts, that will run on TV and online. The winners shown on the ad include Sarah Cockings from Newcastle who scooped £3.5M jackpot prize at age 21 in 2005; Chris & Geraldine Bradley from South Wales who were part of a family syndicate with grandfather, Bob, and father, Barry, and shared a £3,570,063 win in 2006 and Gary MacDonald, who won the £5,208,504 jackpot in April this year.
According to Allwyn’s research of over 2500 people, the UK is a nation of optimists with 54% of the population believing they’re lucky, 89% have the habit of crossing their fingers for something good to happen and 41% hope to win the Lotto.
“The original tagline ‘It Could Be You’ has always struck a chord with our players and it has never left us,” said Steve Parkinson, brand & marketing director at Allwyn UK. “We know our players still use the phrase when they buy tickets and enter the draw and there is a great amount of nostalgia attached to it.
“But there’s also a new generation of players that want those ‘what if’ magic moments that Lotto provides. People win Lotto week in, week out, and we all have a chance if we buy a ticket. We wanted to embrace that and involve some of the real winners from across the years to demonstrate that anyone can win.”
The move comes after Allwyn had to suspend Lottery sales for 36 hours last month as it started to rollout over 30,000 new state-of the-art Wave National Lottery terminals, replacing the legacy Altura machines.
The Wave terminals contain state-of-the-art technology that benefits both retailers and National Lottery players. The sleek machines feature a high-speed processor that ensures faster transactions, a bigger and tilt-adjustable LCD screen, wireless 1D barcode and 2D code scanners, and a play slip reader that can be fed both horizontally and vertically. They also provide retailers with more functionality, including enhanced reporting features and the ability to change numbers on National Lottery Fast Pay cards.
As a result of the upheaval, the lottery operator launched a special competition just for National Lottery retailers to thank them for their support, and particularly for their understanding and patience during the recent significant tech upgrades and the two huge EuroMillions roll series.
