Fueling Imagination

Helping the Kentucky Lottery eclipse $2 billion in sales for the first time

BACKGROUND

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The Kentucky Lottery Corporation’s mission is to fuel imagination and fund education for Kentuckians across the Commonwealth. As of July 2023, lottery proceeds had provided over $4.4 billion for college scholarship and grant programs, including 100% of funding for the popular KEES Scholarship program. 

As the Kentucky Lottery headed toward its 35^th anniversary, it was imperative that they continue to maintain and grow that funding despite headwinds from record inflation and the legalization of sports gambling in Kentucky, not to mention threats they’d weathered due to illegal or gray machines invading the Commonwealth. To achieve this, the Kentucky Lottery would need to determine how to drive more online revenue, the newest channel, and the largest opportunity for growth in their portfolio.

The Kentucky Lottery joined forces with BCH, their longtime agency partner, to determine the opportunity zones to continue to grow the brand and sales across the state.

STRATEGIC APPROACH

In order to drive greater levels of online revenue, BCH recommended a two-pronged approach – the power of mass media and the memorability of great creative that tells a story.

On the surface, online video placements are known to be more engaging and more enticing to click than a display banner.  This is true.  However, we took that a step further.  

To lay the groundwork for memorability with audience members, BCH recommended leveraging strategic broadcast media buys in major sports and other content to capture a mass audience.  

We then ran concurrent online video flights optimized to drive revenue with the same creative that was running in broadcast.  This created continuity and greater frequency to generate more memorability and ultimately, better results.

CREATIVE SOLUTION

The power of storytelling. 

Storytelling is a powerful technique for building relationships. It’s an age-old concept that brings people together and keeps them engaged. Stories can inform and emotionally engage your audience – and emotion is a powerful call to action.

We’ve connected with Kentucky Lottery players by fueling their imagination with creative storytelling – stories that spoke to the thrill of surprise, the adrenaline rush of calling the shots, dancing rabbits, talking game tickets, and even staged a mini-musical at a historic Louisville landmark to connect with our players and potential players.

This premium inventory of “stories” created a platform to build a player base, expand existing players’ interest and fuel imagination, allowing the Kentucky Lottery to fund more students’ education.

RESULTS

The results speak for themselves and really go to show the importance of mass media, frequency, and great creative.  What we found is that investing more in broadcast media correlated perfectly with increased return on ad spend for online videos (see chart)*.

The online revenue generated through this campaign played a role in the Kentucky Lottery announcing as of March 26^th, 2024, they have now provided over $5 billion for college scholarship and grant programs for Kentucky students on their way to celebrating 35 years of winning. This campaign continued to show key results over the following months with the Kentucky Lottery delivering over $2 billion in annual sales for FY 2024 for the very first time (as of June 30th, 2024).

*Important to note that the Powerball jackpot was also rolling towards the second-largest jackpot in US history ($1.765 billion) throughout September & the first half October 2023.