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January/February 2016 // PUBLIC GAMING INTERNATIONAL //
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However, this example feels tactical, the exception to the norm
rather than part of a strategic POS display management approach.
Elevating this approach strategically would imply that the prod-
uct development and marketing team make the specific effort, as
part of the product development and launch process, to ensure
that all new products stand out through their physical attributes
at POS. A simple framework for that step in the process could be
something like this.
b) Tap into people’s cultural passion points as a way to
stand-out:
Another way to help people overcome “Choice Overload” and
facilitate trial and decision making at point of sale is to tap into
some of your players’ and potential players’ core cultural passion
areas. This point is basically about “borrowed interest.” The best
example I’ve seen illustrating this point was the Walking Dead
game by Scientific Games launched a couple of years ago.
By tapping into people’s love for the Walking Dead TV show,
lotteries were able to attract new players. Walking Dead has be-
come a pop-cultural phenomenon with a strong following and
tapping into that equity made it easier for younger players to “en-
ter” the category.
Here too, what appeared to be a one-off game idea could
become a more strategic way to manage a product portfolio
by simply asking what other passion points and pop-cultural
trends could a lottery tap into to attract new users to the cat-
egory (Facebook analytics can provide a huge insights here).
Star Wars, anyone?
2. Leverage digital channels to simulate
experiences, not to sell
While Digital with a capital D is on every marketers mind, most
state lotteries are legally constrained from utilizing it as a sales
channel. So, the default option for many lottery agencies is to use
the digital space (especially mobile and social) for either informa-
tion purposes (the winning numbers, announcing the winners,
etc.), for communication and advertising purposes or as part of
their content strategy. And that’s smart given the legal constraints.
However, there is also another way to look at the digital space
and its potential to draw players, especially new players, into the
category. Allow me to digress for a second.
A few years ago, I had the opportunity to have Hallmark, the
greeting cards manufacturer and distributor, as a client. Hallmark
is generally known for its highly emotional advertising but what
many people don’t realize is that Hallmark is actually in the retail
business, trying to drive consumers into any of its 2250 Gold
Crown stores (1850 of which are privately owned). Hallmark had
a problem similar to the lottery category, known as the leaking
bucket, in that it struggled in attracting younger people while
older customers, well, get older and eventually drop out of the
category. The typical Gold Crown store visitor was a lady in her
60s with way too much time on her hands.
To make things worse, free e-card services started to pop-up
online at the time (this was 6 or 7 years ago), a trend Hallmark
saw as a threat and therefore strongly resisted initially. In fact,
the company was 1. Afraid to alienate its retailers (the belief at
the time being that “people who send a card online will not go to
a store”) and 2. Lose sales and profit to this free digital offering.
However, after a while we started to realize that this trend to-
wards free online greeting cards was actually helping Hallmark’s
sales and retail stores visits because it allowed a whole new gen-
eration of consumers to enter the category and experience the
satisfaction of 1. Sending a greeting card and 2. Getting exposed
to the recognition and appreciation of the receiver (a key element
in the giving process).
In other words, the internet enabled a whole new generation of
potential greeting cards buyers to “experience” the satisfaction of
sending a greeting card from the comfort of their desk or couch,
which in turn drew them into a more “ritualized social connec-
tion behavior” and ultimately into the category.
The same insight might apply to the lottery category. What if
we’d use the digital space to help create experiences that would
give potential players the opportunity to explore and feel what it