One of the country’s most sought-after creative advertising accounts, the National Lottery, has been put out to pitch by its new owners, La Française des Jeux (FDJ), which operates the State lottery in France. Since McConnells handled the creative for the National Lottery’s roll out, the lucrative account has been handled by DDFH&B, Rothco (now Droga5) and, most recently, Core Creative. The media was initially with Carat before moving to Starcom.
Media buying and planning is not part of the current review.
The pitch will be managed by the National Lottery’s Sarah Jennings who succeeded interim chief marketing officer Maebh Gleeson, after she replaced Paul Dervan following his move to Miro, the global tech company based in Amsterdam. Jennings has extensive marketing and commercial experience from working with Sky for almost ten years, and before that in developing customer value management strategies at Axa, Aviva, Eir and O2.
New strategy
Before Dervan’s departure to Miro, he was voted Marketer of the Year in 2022 for his National Lottery strategies. When he joined the company in late 2019, he set about devising a new strategy in place of the previous focus on promotions and the pursuit of short-term gains through ticket sales. Dervan’s vision centred on strengthening the brand to push growth. In 2021, the lottery topped €1 billion for the first time, up 19 per cent on 2019 figures.
