Hear the word bingo and it will likely conjure up images of aggressively patterned carpets, tacky chandeliers and a clientele whose average age is the same as your nan’s. The fanaticism around the game has never quite reached the dizzying heights of the bingo hall craze that first swept the UK in the 1960s, with most avid players opting to partake online these days.

The UK’s biggest online bingo brand Tombola is hoping to inject new life into the space and take on the highly competitive gambling market with its new campaign, Open For Fun. It marks the brand’s first collaboration with agency partner Meanwhile, which was founded in 2022 by former BBC Creative CDs Tim Jones and James Cross and Chapter MD Alastair Marchant.

Featuring a significant change in tone and creative direction from previous campaigns, the two-minute film centres around an original track written by The Midnight Beast – the comedy music group most famous for their YouTube parody cover of Ke$ha’s classic noughties track TikTok.

Starring stand-up Jo Griffin, the ad illustrates all the random moments of downtime that are well-suited to a spot of bingo, starting out with more mundane examples before swiftly descending into the surreal. Overall, it feels like a fresh approach in an otherwise stale sector, as well as neatly tapping into the wider trend of brands hijacking the music video.

Credits:
Agency: Meanwhile
Production Company: Blink
Director: Big Red Button
Music: The Midnight Beast
Sound Design: Factory
Post-production: Rascal