The Challenge
In today’s digital world, people are retreating more and more into their own bubbles. This is leading to increasing loneliness and a loss of human connection. As a lottery brand, Staatsloterij believes that some things are more important than winning a jackpot of 30 million, such as love, friendship, or a sense of community. It reframes “real luck” as the warmth and attention we share with others, especially those closest to us. In recent years, the commercial has become a tradition in its own right, setting high expectations for emotional storytelling year after year. For 2025, the challenge was to stand out while reinforcing its core message.
The Solution
After many live-action shoots in the past, we wanted a style that fit this year’s story about human connection. Therefore, we chose the most human and labor-intensive medium there is: traditional stop-motion. In the stop-motion film, we follow a grumpy elderly man with a small dark cloud hovering above him, mirroring his mood. Living a solitary life, he reluctantly accepts packages for his neighbors. But when a New Year’s lottery ticket is mistakenly delivered to his home, he sets out to return it. What begins as a simple errand turns into a journey through his street, where small, unexpected acts of kindness from his neighbors gradually soften his outlook. Every character, prop, and miniature Dutch streetscape was built and animated by hand, and its “flaws” signal real human presence. This creates not only an emotional authenticity that CGI cannot replicate, but also a visual style that grabs people’s attention.