Ohio Lottery gets crafty with its holiday ads
Speaking of nutty holiday ad characters, Northlich introduces an overeager arts-and-crafts enthusiast in its new spots for the Ohio Lottery. One ad is posted below; see a bunch more here. The theme is "Makin' It Fun With Maggie." But in Ohio, as in Illinois and every other state, lottery tickets just aren't much fun as gifts. If they're losers, it's like not getting a present at all. If they're winners, it's worse, because then you feel obliged to share, since the giver will be pissed off if he doesn't get a cut. Ohio tickets are especially bad, because you have to go to places like Cleveland to collect. And folks who live there can't afford to move because they waste all their cash on lottery tickets. Look, I'm a grinch, and I usually don't give a sh*t for the holidays. But this year, thanks to Oxfam, I just might. —Posted by David Gianatasio Previously on AdFreak: |
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Published on November 24, 2009 | Permalink
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Illinois Lottery joying people at the holidaysMaybe I'll take the advice of the Illinois Lottery "Joy Someone" spot posted below (by EnergyBBDO and Spank Music, directed by Aaron Ruell) and give the deserving folks in my life scratch tickets as holiday gifts. Neighbors, workmen, local merchants, business colleagues. Well, not Fred from accounting, who insists on coming to work with a cold, but everyone else. I'll hand each one of them a ticket, plus a dime to scratch with. That's class! Their faces will light up as they throw their arms around me and scream: "I'm rich! I'll buy a new house! I'll buy a new car! I'll date supermodels from Beliz!" I'm sure they'd share some of the money. On second thought, I'm handing out candy canes again this year and keeping the lottery tickets for myself. No one's getting rich on my dime but me. Via Adland.
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Published on November 12, 2009 | Permalink
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DDB stocks up on cute for New York Lottery
Oh sure, any commercial can pack the cute cannon with puppies, kittens, piglets and ducklings. But putting them all in little tiny pajamas? That's some straight-up innovative brilliance by DDB for the New York Lottery in the new spot above. The Huffington Post even declared it "perhaps the cutest lottery commercial of all time." If cuddly adorableness isn't your thing, you might at least like the other recent spot below, which squeezes a lot of stylized animation into a mere 15 seconds. See also: |
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Published on September 23, 2009 | Permalink
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Win the Lotto, redeem your sucky childhood
This ad from DDB New Zealand has a Wonder Years vibe, as a balding, middle-aged family guy comes across a childhood wish list in the garage. Turns out he's achieved most of his goals. He married his grade-school crush ... and he's become a millionaire—thanks to the local lottery, of course, which is the client in question. As for being a "hero" and an astronaut, well, I guess he's still working on it. It's a sweet, smartly cast and overall extremely well-done spot that almost made me forget that lotteries are for compulsive suckers like me willing to waste our money for a crack at jackpots we'll never win. Besides, the guy can't be a real lottery winner. If he were, he'd have a full head of hair and a trophy wife, he'd send the brats off to boarding school, and for damn sure he wouldn't still be living down at the ass-end of the world! Via Adoholik. |
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Published on September 15, 2009 | Permalink
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Colle+McVoy gets in character for Monopoly
Like the Minnesota Lottery itself, Colle+McVoy is always changing games. Its creative approach for the client has varied wildly from campaign to campaign. Now, the agency throws everything against the wall with its "Grow your moneystache" effort promoting the new Mega Monopoly scratch tickets. In a 30-second spot, viewable at the bottom of this page, a cute blonde grows a version of the Monopoly mascot's iconic 'stache at work, and her nerdy office-mate is left so utterly speechless, it seems he might faint. C'mon, dude, it's not that weird—live a little! Mustache mirror-clings in bars and restaurants may cause tipsy adults to scratch and claw at their suddenly hirsute visages. Bus shelters converted into red Monopoly-piece "hotels" are eye-catching, though its sobering to consider that folks who spend all their money on lottery tickets could wind up living in one. See also:
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Published on August 19, 2009 | Permalink
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Cactus taking fresh look at Colorado's ballsLet's look at this ballsy campaign by Cactus for the Colorado Powerball lottery. The agency was told to refresh the existing digital-signage campaign while maintaining the motif of six big red balls signifying the six zeroes of a multimillion-dollar jackpot. The solution was to rearrange the balls and tweak the backgrounds to represent gears, circuitry, chemical formulas and such, illustrating that Powerball has been "re-engineered," "re-wired," "re-programmed," etc., to yield faster-growing jackpots. The resulting boards seem a bit hard to read (is the jackpot just $173?). Also, what happens if the jackpot does indeed "grow faster" and tops $1 billion? Six orbs wouldn't work anymore, and the lottery would have to bag those balls and try a different approach. OK, I just wanted to write "bag those balls." I suppose if the jackpot did reach $1 billion, they'd just add a seventh ball. Which would be easy, since they've clearly got lots of balls in Denver. —Posted by David Gianatasio |
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Published on May 27, 2009 | Permalink
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In down times, the lottery's bigger than ever
Could the slumping economy drive a renaissance in lottery advertising and spur sales as the newly unemployed seek quick fixes for their money woes? The question hadn't crossed my mind until the folks at Hill, Holliday sent me their latest work for Massachusetts' Billion Dollar Bonanza. It's touted as "Our biggest game ever," with giant scratch tickets providing the salient visuals. Some hardhats use their shovels instead of a dime to see if they've won. At least they're employed and have an extra $20 to waste—er, I mean, invest—in a ticket. Actually, the way the markets are performing, they might be better off. Hill's become the "big idea" agency. First there was the giant chili pepper for Chili's, now these lottery tickets. A giant chocolate cruller for Dunkin' Donuts would sure be appreciated. Though I really can't afford snacks if I'm blowing—I mean, spending—$20 a pop on the lottery. —Posted by David Gianatasio |
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Published on March 24, 2009 | Permalink
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Minnesota Lottery ads heavy on melodramaI never wanted to be an astronaut. I wanted to win the lottery, so I'd be rich enough to blast someone else into space and watch it all on TV from the safety of my mansion on Earth. That's my awkward introduction to Colle + McVoy's latest spots for the Minnesota State Lottery. The fairly funny vignettes parody soap-opera situations: a missing space explorer miraculously returns; an amnesia victim wears a big forehead Band-Aid; a nerdy guy limps around a convenience store in an upper-body cast. The idea is that playing the lottery is a way to "add some drama to your day." Strange, but scratching instant tickets usually just adds frustration to mine. —Posted by David Gianatasio |
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Published on January 22, 2009 | Permalink
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DDB's mailroom guy is biggest sucker of all
Though amusingly done, I dislike this New York Lottery spot by DDB. Some guy from the mailroom roams around the executive suite, making snide comments about the stuffed suits who pull down "big bucks" for doing no work and depleting the employee pension fund. Now, no one despises senior management more than I do. They refuse to let me use their washroom, and I've explained that I'll only be sleeping there for a few days. What I object to in the ad is Mr. Mailroom's proclamation that he plans to play "Jumbo Bucks." Jeez, everyone knows the lottery's for suckers. Sure, those VPs broke a few federal statutes, but they didn't waste their time on billion-to-one odds. None of my lottery numbers have matched for 10 years. Now, where did I put those withdrawal slips for the pension fund? |
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Published on January 9, 2009 | Permalink
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Colle + McVoy rethinks live lottery drawing
"People love to see stuff get destroyed," says Colle + McVoy group creative director Dave Keepper of the agency's new 60-second nightly drawing show for the Minnesota State Lottery. Now there's a simple, coherent marketing strategy we can all get on board with. The client sure did, so we're treated to giant balls (made of cast iron, weighing 84 pounds each) crashing through cars, furniture, fish tanks, etc. After the demolition, the voiceover says: "Let's drop the winning numbers and see if we can't get you a new [car/furniture/fish tank]," and the night's winning numbers are shown on different falling balls. Hey, it's Minnesota, where winters are cold and long, and pretty much anything passes for entertainment. And Colle + McVoy has made more than 50 of these spots, so they won't get old. Remember the days when lottery-drawing shows had numbered ping-pong balls sucked up into clear glass tubes? Crap, I feel old. —Posted by David Gianatasio |
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Published on November 21, 2008 | Permalink
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Minnesotans would fritter away their riches
Colle + McVoy took my advice (or somebody's) and sped up the pace of their Minnesota lottery ads. (The last bunch moved ... too ... slow.) This trio of cute animated spots touting the Millionaire Raffle game show what winners would do with their money. I think it would probably take more than $1 million to build a cabin island, a roller-coaster restaurant or a giant snow-bot, but the cost of living in "The Land of 10,000 Lakes" is pretty low, so who knows? The bot dumps snow into Wisconsin, then Canada. Good, teach those cheeseheads and hosers a lesson. Of course, these ads aren't nearly as deranged as that stop-motion campaign for the BC Dairy Foundation with the profane goldfish. If I won the lottery, I'd buy a tank of goldfish plated with real gold, then flush them down the drain, because I could always afford more. Hey, it's my daydream. —Posted by David Gianatasio |
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Published on October 21, 2008 | Permalink
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Slow down, you move too fast, says lottery
—Posted by David Gianatasio |
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Published on October 3, 2008 | Permalink
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Aren't you lucky to have a huge clover head
I'm having trouble with the Norwegian definition of "lucky," as presented in this commercial for the Norwegian Lottery. If my head turned into a giant clover just because I landed on the favorable end of circumstance, I wouldn't exactly be in the mood to go buying lottery tickets. I'd see a dermatologist instead. Or a botanist. But I guess this is just one of those cultural differences I'll have to accept. It wouldn't be the first time Norway has lost me. —Posted by David Kiefaber |
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Published on September 8, 2008 | Permalink
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