Promoting your Blippar campaign: Camelot National Lottery case study

‘We have a very strong following when it comes to National Lottery Scratchcards – around 10 million players in retail - but fewer people know about The National Lottery’s digital offering and our online instant win games. After revamping our website this summer we were keen to generate more awareness of both among Scratchcard players… so we went to Blippar.’

This was the thinking of Julia Merritt, Portfolio Strategy Manager of Instants at Camelot UK Lotteries Ltd., who, along with Martyn Baxter, Head of Instants, knew the best way of driving people to The National Lottery’s website was via their more popular ‘real world’ channels.

Julia continues: ‘Mobile is going to be huge for us in 2015 - we’ve just launched a mobile version of our instant win games – so speaking to Blippar about how to link our physical offering with our digital one seemed like a good idea. And the team suggested making a blippable Scratchcard.’

Inside the Scratchcard blipp

Alongside Camelot’s creative team Blippar designed a Scratchcard blipp to give players something extra: an instant musical animation, a fun free game, tips on gifting Scratchcards, and the chance to win £1,000 of shopping vouchers in a free prize draw.

‘Scratchcards are a more spontaneous purchase than draw tickets, so we knew we could have a bit of fun making it interactive,’ explains Julia. ‘We chose a £2 Christmas scratchcard because they’re extremely popular as gifts around the holidays, and Blippar created the fun, animated ‘Whack-a-Snowman’ mobile game, which appears when players blipp the card.’

Once they had decided on a blippable Scratchcard – in the process making The National Lottery the world’s first lottery to create a digitally interactive one using augmented reality to link retail to digital play – the Camelot team did as much as they could to ensure people found it, building an impressive 360º campaign that became the definition of Blippar Best Practice...

Strong CTA

‘If you’re going to do something, do it well,’ is Julia’s modus operandi. ‘Once we’d made our Christmas Cash Scratchcard blippable we wanted to shout about it, so we sent it to Blippar’s in-house design team for their advice and suggestions about creating a powerful call-to-action to feature on the card.

‘We included the Blippar mobile phone icon on the front, alongside words informing players about the Scratchcard's interactivity, with further education on the back. We shuffled around some of the usual Scratchcard text on the back to better inform players about Blippar and show them how to blipp.

‘Initially we worried that we were asking too much of people to expect them to download an app, but now everyone is doing it, which is terrific.’

Camelot's strong Blippar CTA and education on the rear of the blippable Scratchcard

Rich in-store promotion

‘We have 47,000 retailers selling our Scratchcards, so it’s sensible to use them as communication channels,’ explains Julia. ‘We sent all of them information about the blippable Scratchcard, told them about the best ways to inform their customers about it, wrote articles about it in Jackpot, Camelot’s trade magazine, and sent 100 sales staff out to do on-site training with retailers.

‘We were concerned retailers might think the card would drive customers online and away from buying Scratchcards in store, but happily they realised it’s about linking both, and everyone got as excited about the project as we were. Our independent retailers have been particularly keen, telling all their regular Scratchcard players to buy the blippable one because there’s a free game inside it. It’s wonderful.

‘Furthermore, we sent all retailers window posters, media screens and point-of-sale materials featuring the blippable Scratchcard.’

Camelot's blippable Scratchcard inside a National Lottery rack in store

Far-reaching PR

‘We’ve had great campaign coverage in corporate, lottery and convenience store trade press, as well as marketing magazines and tech blogs – 22 pieces overall. The Grocer, Marketing Magazine, Convenience Store, Augmented Reality Trends and World Lotteries have all written about us creating the world’s first AR Scratchcard. In addition to this, a National Lottery television advert featuring the card will go live in December.’

The campaign is live until 31st December, and so far the Camelot team are thrilled with the results: ‘We’re absolutely delighted, and the numbers are looking great. The card is performing very well and the sales are terrific. It’s a great start, but it’s only the beginning: we can’t wait to work with Blippar again – and after trying out a Google Glass in the Blippar offices we’re especially excited about the possibilities there. Expect the next blippable Scratchcard early next year…’