In our 16 years of partnership, LaneTerralever has maintained a strong and productive relationship with the Arizona Lottery. Our abilities are showcased not only in consumer-focused marketing but also by our deep knowledge of the requirements, budgets, and procedures that come with working with a government account. The main business goal for the Lottery is to increase core player ticket sales and increase the transfer funds over to the state of Arizona. After we completed a full brand refresh with a new identity, we started focusing on bolstering the new brand, generating awareness, and targeting the core audience of consistent, long-time players. To further increase the Lottery’s profitability, we were tasked with increasing Arizona Lottery ticket sales, creating marketing efficiencies and cost savings, all while targeting a Millennial and Multicultural audience.
Over the years, Arizona Lottery began decreasing their marketing budget creating a challenge for us to accommodate their needs. We used this budget reduction as a way to become more efficient which in turn, allowed us to continue to increase the Lottery’s fiscal year sales year-over-year. It was especially difficult to maintain fiscal growth with a lower budget when not having enough growth through digital channels. To effectively reach our audience, we need to be in the space where our players are already engaged and build a digitally focused brand.
As the Arizona Lottery evolved, the emphasis started to shift from older players to Millennials ages 21-35, as well as Hispanic audiences, which are a substantial portion of the mainstream Arizona population. This new focus eventually led to a full brand refresh with a new identity, which allowed us to focus on generating awareness and targeting the core audience of consistent, long-time players.
Through our Millennial research and persona creation, we found that Millennials connect with entertainment and cause-oriented brands mainly at events and online. We focused on the following, allowing the Lottery to connect with Millennials. In order to do that we refined brand positioning as a fun, entertaining and cause-focused brand. We expanded media channels to resonate with a younger audience.
We began our research by conducting a segmentation study to provide insights in order to improve sales among current and prospective players of Lottery games. In order to understand the influential players and their gaming experiences, we created three distinct personas to represent each audience: The Dream Chaser, The Traditionalist Millennial, and The Timid Prospect Millennial.
Insights Lead to the following key initiatives:
Having used the same brand identity for nearly 30 years, Arizona Lottery was in need of a fresh brand presence, as they primarily focused on one demographic. They needed to reposition themselves as a fun, entertaining brand with a new mark and tone that resonated with the Millennial audience. The primary goal of rebranding was to gain favor with the younger audience while not alienating the Lottery’s core players.
In order to give a new face to the brand, we went through hundreds of designs and multiple rounds of testing. We focused on humanizing the game using images of real people playing the lottery based on the personas created from our segmentation research. We also emphasized social media usage in order to target younger generations. In order to evoke emotion from the potential consumer, we wanted to emphasize on re-creating the journey of playing the Lottery as well as launching campaigns that truly captured the excitement of the games.
With our target audience being Millennials and Hispanics it was imperative that we do everything in our power to appeal to their wants and needs. Our target demographic had the mindset that if they “knew where the money was going, they may play more” while asking us to show them. That’s when we created “How the Money Helps” key messaging around four main pillars: health and public welfare, economic and business development, environmental issues, as well as education.
Insights from focus groups told us that using the campaign to drive awareness of where Lottery revenues go not only increased playership but was an effective platform to emphasize the Lottery’s contribution to vital programs that positively contribute to the daily life for Arizona residents. This tactic was also effective in feeding the media pipeline with updated information pertaining to the initiatives being funded by the Lottery’s revenue which appealed to the market’s philanthropic tendencies and also boosting the reputation of the Lottery among younger generations.
Most players associate the Lottery with big jackpot games (e.g. Powerball). However, Scratchers ® are considered a better value and easier to win. Both Powerball and Scratchers are perceived as equally fun and easy to play. (Segmentation Research from 2014)
Reasons to Believe: Satisfies consumers’ need to know the potential of winning every day (and not just large jackpots)
Sales tracking showed the obvious, which is that Lottery sales soar when jackpots are high. Research also showed that players considered their Lottery play to be a “win” even if the prize was small – even to the point when they won back the cost of their play.
Advertising was actually suspended when amounts on the jackpot games (Powerball & Mega Millions) reached pre-identified amounts. For example, when the jackpot exceeded $200MM, data showed that additional media spend did not result in more sales. Word spread through non-advertising channels at a pace that made paid media unnecessary!
Those facts, and other KPI tracking showed that the best/most productive advertising investment would be to accelerate sales when jackpots were low. This drove campaign concepts that celebrated ANY win – Scratchers, low jackpots, etc.
By streamlining the Lottery’s digital presence to meet their emerging market we had to establish existing relationships with consumers through a functional website and mobile application. We incorporated an Arizona Lottery loyalty program club, allowing users to be a member while receiving promotions. We also created a mobile application for the Lottery that allowed players to experience the Lottery on the go. The new Lottery website would include a Spanish language site so that their online presence was easily accessible to their Hispanic audience. We also focused to ensure all players could easily find the most current jackpot and winning numbers information. We realized that by giving players the ability to quickly and accurately check their numbers would be imperative when creating the new website.
With our extensive list of services and projects delivered, every ad, TV spot, sales signage and piece of marketing has laddered up to the Lottery’s business objectives. And these efforts are aligned across all of our disciplines and deliverables.
Business Results
Marketing Results
