A Dog On The Telly

My ongoing working collaboration with the Enterprises team at Age UK has broken new ground, which you may have seen firsthand if you've been paying attention to your TV in recent months.

In 2016 I competed a sizeable project for the charity; designing a new online experience for their digital gaming products. Lottery, Raffle and Superdraw games were feeling disconnected and lacked cohesion, so I was commissioned by the Client to design a brand new web portal that would unify the games, improve user engagement and reinvigorate the overall aesthetic. The project was a huge undertaking requiring considerable UX design and brand authoring experience, culminating in a design that was approved across the board and continues to be effective with the market to this day. Whilst working on the project I also took the opportunity to extend the brand aesthetic across the portal by devising new illustrated assets. Starbursts, tumbling raffle tickets, rocketing lottery balls and a host of similarly composed icon sets adorn the site, heightening the overall sense of fun and excitement. In fact, these illustrations were so well received by the Client that they have been utilised beyond their initial scope in a variety of different marketing efforts promoting the games, including an ad spot on national UK TV.

Since last autumn viewers will have witnessed a high-aspiring dog named Dodger, voiced by comedian Hugh Dennis, professing his weariness of recurring 'rollovers' offered by other lotteries and his intent to spend the winnings of the more consistent Age UK Lottery instead. Amongst the pun-driven narrative Dodger describes the benefits of playing Age UK's lottery, including the aforementioned online portal and postal communication, while dutifully placing a paw upon a laptop keyboard and retrieving an Age UK branded envelope from the doormat. On screen during these descriptions the web portal I designed and the illustrated artwork on the envelope are prominently displayed. To my knowledge this is the first time that my illustration and web design has been broadcast to audiences on national television.

Off screen Age UK commissioned me to take Dodger to other territories and extend the campaign further. In addition to designing a series of animated web banners depicting Dodger dreaming of an exotic getaway the Client tasked me with composing and artworking multiple print posters promoting the Lottery.

This marketing push for Age UK's Lottery is noteworthy in the product's agenda for growth and the inclusion of a TV spot demonstrates how competitive secondary donation streams have become in the charity space. The campaign message was markedly simple and hugely resemblant of the Client's routine email communication, but the vehicle of the canine mascot sought to - and was successful in - broadening appeal and raising acquisition.

If you didn't catch Dodger in the Age UK Lottery's TV ad you can view it here