Source: People’s Postcode Lottery
As traditional broadcasters face declining linear audiences and fragmented viewing habits, brands are being offered new ways to fund, shape and participate in programming. One model gaining renewed momentum is ad-funded entertainment.
This year, ITV aired its largest advertiser-funded programme to date with People’s Postcode Lottery, launching an interactive prime time game show designed to blend entertainment and brand storytelling.
Win Win, which launched in September, was fronted by Mel Giedroyc and Sue Perkins and ran for six Saturday-night episodes. Contestants competed head-to-head for the chance to win up to £20,000, with a nominated charity receiving the same amount. In the final episode, one contestant took home £1m.
Source: People’s Postcode Lottery
As traditional broadcasters face declining linear audiences and fragmented viewing habits, brands are being offered new ways to fund, shape and participate in programming. One model gaining renewed momentum is ad-funded entertainment.
This year, ITV aired its largest advertiser-funded programme to date with People’s Postcode Lottery, launching an interactive prime time game show designed to blend entertainment and brand storytelling.
Win Win, which launched in September, was fronted by Mel Giedroyc and Sue Perkins and ran for six Saturday-night episodes. Contestants competed head-to-head for the chance to win up to £20,000, with a nominated charity receiving the same amount. In the final episode, one contestant took home £1m.
Crucially, the prizes on offer in the studio were also available to viewers at home, who could play along live. The format was designed to create a shared, high-stakes experience, encouraging appointment-to-view television at a time when live viewing is increasingly hard to achieve.‘A leap of faith’: Three brands on the value of ad-funded programming
For People’s Postcode Lottery in the UK, this has been a long time coming.
“There’s always been an aspiration in Great Britain for us to have a game show,” says managing director David Pullan. “But it’s always been a challenge because of Ofcom regulations and the traditional division of church and state between content and advertising.”
That separation, Pullan argues, has softened as broadcasters search for new revenue streams and new ways to retain audiences.
“Given the way that the TV market has changed over the last few years and the challenges that traditional broadcasters are facing, they’ve been more open to these kinds of conversations,” he says.
From concept to commission
Win Win was created and produced with Hello Dolly, with People’s Postcode Lottery spending around a year developing the format with the production company before it was ready to take to ITV.
“We wanted to get it to a point where we could say: this is an entirely new format. It’s very innovative, people can play along at home and they can win exactly the same prizes as those in the studio,” he explains.
That interactivity proved key to ITV’s interest, particularly as broadcasters look to create TV shows that reward live viewing.
“ITV is looking for interactive content, particularly for appointment-to-view programming, where you have to watch it live, they were very happy with it,” he adds.
People’s Postcode Lottery Group is not new to branded entertainment. Founded in the Netherlands in 1989, the organisation has a long history of funding game shows and entertainment formats in other European markets, including decades-long runs in the Netherlands and Sweden.
That global experience helped inform the UK approach, says Imme Rog, chief marketing officer and executive board member at People’s Postcode Lottery.
“We always wanted to be part of the conversation with the producer, because then you can express everything you want to express as a brand. And we are all about charity, prize-winning, joy and winning together,” she adds.
It helps build trust with people who maybe didn’t know about us or didn’t understand how big we are.
David Pullan, People’s Postcode Lottery
Despite the track record elsewhere, Pullan admits the UK launch still felt like a risk, both for ITV and the brand.
“Doing advertiser-funded programming in prime time on a Saturday night was a new thing for ITV,” he says. “They were committed and they were brave.”
The show aired at the same time as BBC One’s Strictly Come Dancing, traditionally one of the most-watched slots in British television. However, Pullan says the competition had less impact than expected, with Win Win drawing around six million viewers across its six episodes.
The commercial impact extended beyond viewing figures. More than 345,000 people registered to play Win Win via the ITV and STV microsite. The campaign delivered the highest October draw sales in People’s Postcode Lottery’s history, while 240,000 people opted in to follow-up marketing communications, including 80,000 new contacts.
Notably, the investment in this was a brand investment, not a sales driver, according to Pullan.
“You shouldn’t use sales KPIs for a brand investment,” he explains. “We see it very much as a key part of our brand investment as a marketing organisation. It benefits our sales drives, but it also helps grow our stature in terms of the broader audience. It helps build trust with people who maybe didn’t know about us or didn’t understand how big we are.”
Brand metrics suggest the approach was successful. Among viewers, consideration rose by 8%, first-choice consideration increased by 7% and overall brand perception improved by 8%, according to People’s Postcode Lottery. The strongest gains were in attributes such as “exciting”, “modern” and “more ways to play”.
Acting like a big brand
Television remains one of the most effective tools for building trust at scale, particularly for a brand that wants to behave like a “status” brand, Pullan argues.
“We see ourselves as a ‘heart of the nation’ brand,” he says. “That’s why ITV is the perfect partner for us.”
While People’s Postcode Lottery has grown rapidly over the past two decades, awareness of its scale has lagged behind.
“We’ve grown from nothing in 20 years, and growth has accelerated significantly in the last five,” Pullan says. “But most people don’t realise how big we are. Many don’t know we’ve raised £1.5bn for charity in the UK.”
Therefore, advertiser-funded entertainment was as much about signalling confidence and credibility as it was about engagement.
“It’s that big brand behaviour thing, which is like going, ‘you should expect to see this in primetime on Saturday night, because we are that kind of brand.’”How People’s Postcode Lottery reached new audiences with ‘fit for format’ strategy
Internally, the show was a huge undertaking. There were multiple teams set up dedicated to different aspects. One was set up to focus specifically on the marketing activations around the show, while another was dedicated to the operational side.
“It’s probably the thing we’ve done that’s had the most impact across the most departments. It was a really complicated thing to land,” he adds.
People’s Postcode Lottery is considered a form of gambling, even though it is “not for commercial gain” and donates a minimum of 30% of each ticket price to charity.
However, as a gambling brand, People’s Postcode Lottery also faces additional regulations when it comes to advertising and sponsorship.
“Because we’re a gambling brand, it’s much more restrictive,” Pullan says. “You can’t simply integrate the product into the show or mention it in the same way other advertisers might.”
That raises questions for broadcasters, he adds, about how to ensure value for both parties when traditional brand placement tools are unavailable.
“How do you make it worth it for the broadcaster? How do you ensure the advertiser funding the programme gets value?” Pullan asks.
As broadcasters continue to experiment with advertiser-funded content, Win Win shows how brands can move beyond spot advertising and into entertainment, provided they are willing to invest, collaborate and accept a degree of creative risk.
“The viewers stayed with the show, and we got a significant uplift at the finale,” says Pullan. “The whole emotion of that final episode was great television, and you saw lots of coverage of that afterwards. In terms of cultural impact it was very positive.”