Connecting with consumers can be a daunting challenge for any marketer, especially when you’ve run multiple slogans and changed them quicker than you can lose a buck or two playing the Illinois Lottery.
Promoting its individual games might not have been a bad strategy in the past for the lottery, but a new ad campaign is breaking under one umbrella: “The Illinois Lottery, Players Have More Fun.”
Granted, this is hardly a creative line that will have winners in Lotto and other games whistling the music as they cash in their tickets.
However, it’s a start in the right direction for this state unit, which last December tapped Ogilvy & Mather Chicago as its new agency–the fourth shop to work on the lottery’s ad account, currently with $18 million annual billing, since its inception in 1975.
Lori Montana, lottery director, terms this new campaign, breaking this week with radio teaser spots, followed next week with 60-second radio commercials and out-of-home advertising, as “groundbreaking, fun and all-inclusive.” She adds, “in numerous ways, this campaign effectively demonstrates that half the fun . . . is simply playing the games.”
Celebrities such as blues legend Buddy Guy, Billy Goat Tavern’s Sam Sianis and Jim McMahon, one of the heroes of the Bears Super Bowl win (which now seems like decades ago) are in the campaign. Cub Mark Grace and Sox organist Nancy Faust are among personalities who will surface later, Montana said.
Player interest heightens when jackpots mushroom in Big Games. More than two-thirds of adults will buy at least one Lotto ticket over a 12-month period, Montana said. Nevertheless, lottery revenues are down 2 percent so far in the fiscal year ending June 30 from a year earlier.
Admittedly, there is a lot of competition in gaming and for the leisure dollar, and fun or not, the bottom line is winning. Aside from hard-core players, how many do you know who quit when they keep on losing?
C’mon Jim and Mark, tell me how to win.
Field days for Tortu: What does it take to stage such a spectacular as Flowering Field’s, Marshall Field & Co.’s annual two-week flower show–the current one running through Sunday? Try upwards of $600,000, a column guess for the flowers, maintenance and related costs for both the State Street flagship store and its Water Tower Place unit. While the event at State Street is entitled “Curious George goes to Field’s Flower Show,” the Water Tower Place show is under “Gardens of Provence,” masterminded by prominent Paris-based floral designer Christian Tortu. Does it pay off? You bet. Traffic may be up 15 to 20 percent at those stores, and that means potential business. Tortu did such a standout job at Water Tower Place, where he was the center of attention at a black-tie dinner gala Friday night, that Field’s is strongly considering bringing him back for a future floral show, perhaps next year. Gossip at dinner indicated Tortu has a deal in the works with apparel designer Giorgio Armani, a joint venture or perhaps floral arrangements for his runway shows. As for Field’s State Street store, where the show began around Mother’s Day seven years ago, no fewer than nine designers flew in this time from California, headed by Steve Podesta, based in San Francisco. He’s been guiding this floral show for Field’s since the beginning. For the last two years, the flower show has been staged in late March; Field’s realized the timing was better now instead of later. The Water Tower Place gala, attended by 400, included a number of Target Corp. executives from corporate offices in Minneapolis, such as Linda Ahlers, president of its department stores division, and Michael R. Francis, senior VP-marketing and visual merchandising for that same unit. It raised $75,000 for the Council of the Chicago Academy of Sciences and the Auxiliary Board, both of the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum in Lincoln Park.
Strictly Personal: Birthday greetings to retired Goldblatt’s ad chief Max Applebaum, 91; Chad Wilber, 28 (Tri-State Trading); adman Patrick Palmer, 35; Randy Esserman, 54 (Aqua Ferm); and Charles L. Haskell, 56 (Lettuce Entertain You Enterprises).
Mark Carlson and Stacey Schneider Rubin were promoted to VPs and management directors, and Dustin Cohn became a VP, account director, all at FCB Chicago. Also, Dallas N. Jamison named a senior VP, technology group, Chicago office of PR 21.
More Top Picks Best Dimmable Desk Lamps For Reading