Staatsloterij's 2025 New Year campaign 'Give Each Other Some Luck' uses handcrafted stop-motion animation by Blinkink to explore community and kindness in the
ARCHIVEStaatsloterij Bets on Handcrafted Stop-Motion for Its 2025 New Year Campaign
Staatsloterij's 2025 New Year campaign, titled "Give Each Other Some Luck," is a fully handcrafted stop-motion film created by TBWA\NEBOKO and produced with award-winning British animation studio Blinkink, following a grumpy neighbour whose reluctant act of returning a lottery ticket unlocks a chain of community kindness across his street on New Year's Eve in the Netherlands.
The campaign launched on 6 December 2025 within the STER Christmas and New Year advertising block across Dutch television channels, as reported by partners.motionographer.com. A nationwide rollout followed from 10 through 31 December 2025 across television, online, social media, radio, out-of-home, and retail, according to The Drum and igamingexpress.com. The campaign was timed directly to Staatsloterij's annual New Year's Eve draw on 31 December 2025, one of the most widely watched broadcast moments in the Netherlands each year.
Staatsloterij is part of Nederlandse Loterij, the Dutch state-owned lottery organisation, as documented on Nederlandseloterij Nl. The 2025 campaign marks a deliberate creative evolution for the brand: after years of emotionally resonant films led by animal characters — a dog, a hedgehog, a cat — the brand embraced a tactile, hand-built world constructed entirely through stop-motion animation. This represents the first time the brand has used fully handcrafted stop-motion for its New Year's commercial, according to Partners Motionographer. The Clapboard Score for this campaign is 73 out of 100.
ARCHIVEStaatsloterij operates within one of the Netherlands' most established entertainment categories. The Dutch recurring lottery market generated €2.49 billion in 2025, up from €2.42 billion in 2024, a growth rate of approximately 2.9%, according to Casinonieuws Nl and globalgaminginsider.com. Within this expanding market, Staatsloterij and Nationale Postcode Loterij are identified by the Dutch regulator as the two largest lotteries, each holding an estimated market share of approximately 25 to 35 percent of recurring-lottery turnover, per casinonieuws.nl. VriendenLoterij follows as a meaningful secondary player.
The strategic rationale behind "Give Each Other Some Luck" rests on an insight that TBWA\NEBOKO's Executive Creative Director Dennis Baars articulates directly, as quoted on partners.motionographer.com and fonkmagazine.com: "Each year, the narrative of the campaign is all about the same insight: that some things in life are more valuable than a Jackpot prize of 30 million euros." In a category where competitors default to prize-led communication, Staatsloterij consistently repositions the lottery ticket as a vehicle for human connection rather than individual wealth. The 2025 campaign extends this philosophy by placing generosity and community at the centre of the narrative, using the neighbourhood as its stage and small gestures as its dramatic currency.
In the Netherlands, where the New Year's Eve draw functions as a shared national ritual, this positioning carries particular resonance. By anchoring the film to the act of returning a neighbour's lottery ticket — an unremarkable act that becomes transformative — TBWA\NEBOKO translated an abstract brand value into a concrete, relatable moment rooted in everyday Dutch community life.
The creative execution of "Give Each Other Some Luck" is defined by a commitment to physical craft at a moment when digital and AI-assisted production have become industry defaults. Stop-motion animation directs every frame of the film, with production carried out by Blinkink — the British animation studio globally recognised for the John Lewis Christmas commercial "The Bear and The Hare" — under the direction of Joseph Mann, with animation by Sam Gainsborough, as credited by partners.motionographer.com and shots.net.
The film follows a grumpy elderly neighbour accompanied by a small dark cloud that physically mirrors his sour mood, alongside his equally displeased cat. When a New Year's lottery ticket is delivered to his home, he reluctantly ventures out to return it. What unfolds is a street-level journey in which neighbours offer small, unexpected gestures of warmth that gradually dissolve his resistance. The narrative arc is simple by design: it allows the handcrafted visual texture — the imperfect edges, the tangible materials, the frame-by-frame movement — to carry emotional weight that polished digital animation would not.
Coverage on creativeboom.com praised the campaign's deliberate choice of labour-intensive stop-motion as a counterpoint to AI-assisted production, describing the result as "intimate, crafted, memorable." Motionographer also covered the campaign, recognising the production's technical ambition within the context of commercial animation. In the Netherlands, where Staatsloterij's previous New Year's films established a signature of emotionally resonant storytelling, the shift to a fully handcrafted aesthetic deepens rather than departs from that legacy. The miniature world built for the film reinforces the campaign's thematic argument: that meaningful things are made carefully, by hand, one small act at a time.
"Give Each Other Some Luck" accumulated measurable industry recognition following its December 2025 run across the Netherlands. The campaign received a Bronze Esprix in the Business to Consumer category, as reported by luerzersarchive.com. It also received a SAN Award, with reporting confirmed across linkedin.com and motionographer.com. These awards represent externally verified third-party validation of the campaign's effectiveness within the Dutch advertising industry.
No independently verified audience viewing figures or sales-uplift data for this specific campaign are publicly available at the time of writing. What the structural evidence does confirm is that the campaign was built for sustained attention: a nationwide media plan running from 10 to 31 December 2025 across television, digital, social, radio, out-of-home, and retail, according to thedrum.com, ensured repeated exposure across all primary touchpoints during the Netherlands' highest-engagement lottery period. The choice of stop-motion animation — a format that rewards close viewing and generates organic conversation within creative industry communities — extended earned media reach beyond paid placement, as evidenced by coverage on creativeboom.com, motionographer.com, and shots.net.
Staatsloterij's broader campaign lineage also provides context for performance expectations. Previous New Year's campaigns featuring animal protagonists won the Gouden Loeki — the Netherlands' audience award for best television commercial — in 2018, 2019, and 2020, as reported by Rtl Nl and creativeboom.com. The 2025 campaign's industry award results suggest the brand maintained its reputation for craft-led, emotionally effective storytelling even as it moved into new creative territory.
"Give Each Other Some Luck" is Staatsloterij's 2025 New Year campaign created by TBWA\NEBOKO. It is a handcrafted stop-motion film produced with British studio Blinkink, following a grumpy neighbour whose reluctant act of community kindness unfolds across his street on New Year's Eve in the Netherlands.
Joseph Mann directed the Staatsloterij 2025 New Year's stop-motion film. Mann worked with animation by Sam Gainsborough through production company Blinkink, the British studio also known for the John Lewis Christmas commercial "The Bear and The Hare," as credited by partners.motionographer.com and shots.net.
The campaign won a Bronze Esprix in the Business to Consumer category and a SAN Award, as reported by luerzersarchive.com and motionographer.com. These represent the campaign's verified industry recognition following its nationwide run across the Netherlands from 6 to 31 December 2025.
Staatsloterij chose stop-motion to tell its story in a surprising new way while retaining the brand's emotionally resonant signature. As TBWA\NEBOKO Executive Creative Director Dennis Baars explained on partners.motionographer.com, the brand wanted a crafted, tactile world to reflect the campaign's message that human connection outweighs prize money.
Staatsloterij's 2025 campaign continues over a decade of emotionally driven New Year's films. Previous campaigns featuring a dog, hedgehog, and cat each won the Gouden Loeki audience award in 2018, 2019, and 2020, according to rtl.nl. The 2025 stop-motion film is the brand's first fully handcrafted New Year's commercial, per partners.motionographer.com.
The Dutch recurring lottery market generated €2.49 billion in 2025, up from €2.42 billion in 2024, according to casinonieuws.nl and globalgaminginsider.com. Staatsloterij and its closest competitor Nationale Postcode Loterij are the two largest players, each holding an estimated 25 to 35 percent share of recurring-lottery turnover in the Netherlands.
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