Damien O'Donnell Shows Dreams Can Come True in Wholesome Ad for The National Lottery

Arrow Films presents Damien O'Donnell's recent work for The Irish National Lottery through Irish advertising agency Core. The film showcases Damien's natural ability to draw brilliant performances with a gentle comic touch, a great sympathy for his characters and a wonderful visual style.

The TV ad tells the story of a golfer, who as it turns out, is not good at the game. Undeterred, however, he continues to play the game he loves and one day takes a shot which - following a bizarre chain of events - gives him a spectacular hole-in-one, as the voice-over says: “Dreams can come true. They certainly did for 30 new lottery millionaires last year.”

Damien set out to make a funny and uplifting commercial with the message that good luck happens more often than you think, and no matter how unlucky your day has been, it could happen to you. The ad tells the story of Tadhg’s journey to becoming lucky and takes the audience on a journey from hopelessness to joy. This is a human, emotional and relatable story about perseverance. In Tadhg, Damien has created a sympathetic comic character who brings out the nurturing urge in all of us.

This was the first full scale production to happen post Covid-19 lockdown in Ireland. Arrow Films shot over a number of days with up to 60 people on set, observing all safety measures and guidelines which resulted in a successful and safe shoot. The client and agency were on set, but everyone observed the 2m social distance and viewed the camera footage on their personal devices. There was no video village or monitors as this is a real pinch point in trying to maintain social distancing on set.

In the spot, Tadhg is having a bad day, a bad week, maybe even a bad year playing a game he loves. Nothing is going right. Arrow Films agrees everybody has had days like this so viewers can empathise with him. Despite all his bad luck, he perseveres. He really loves this stupid game, so people want him to win, and just when he feels all is lost, his luck changes - he scores the most outlandish hole-in-one.

The project is currently running on TV, and online.