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// PUBLIC GAMING INTERNATIONAL // January/February 2016
would like to play? And win?
To test this hypothesis First-The-Trousers is working on two
Facebook apps. One taps into the insight that everyone has at one
time or another imagined and even calculated what they would
do if they’d win the lottery. Since we at FTT believe that technol-
ogy enables existing behaviors rather than creating new ones, the
idea of this Facebook App is to give people a tool to plan what
they’d do with a big win and, obviously share the results with their
social networks.
The second Facebook App idea FTT has in the pipeline is
a quiz that would help players identify what type of Million-
aire they’d be. Based on their answer to a few simple questions,
respondents could be assigned to one of 6 or 7 personas (the
philanthropist, the traveler, the egoist, etc.), which again could
obviously be shared on social media. Online personality test and
quizzes are highly popular and viral, so why not use them for
the lottery category?
What these digitally enabled experiences do, we believe, is
help potential players to get in the “mental frame of mind” of
playing the lottery by inviting them to actively imagine (and
calculate) what it would be like to win (as opposed to just com-
municate an advertising message). This personal experience, as
we know from other categories, is then very likely to act as a
door opener into the category for people who may have never
imaged playing before.
3. Increase the Number of Purchase Occasions
An accepted observation in the category is that increasing the
number of retail outlets helps increase overall sales, as was seen
last year by the New Jersey State Lottery. Behind this simple
observation is a hidden truth: “the more opportunities players
have to purchase games, the more they will do so.” From my
past experience I know this to be also true for the confectionary
category: increased distribution equals increased sales.
Another way to look at this basic truth is not so much in
terms of retail touch points but in terms of buying occasions,
following the logic that “the more purchase occasions players
are given (i.e. reasons to buy games) the more games they will
buy.” In the Nov/Dec 2015 edition of the PGRI magazines we
illustrated in an article entitled “Embracing The Essence of the
Traditional Lottery-Playing Experience” how scratch games that
looked like greeting cards or coffee sleeves (rather than tradi-
tional scratch-off games) would be equally appealing to survey
respondents (in terms of purchase intent) while also tapping
into very different need state and therefore purchase occasions:
social gifting for greeting cards and “being part of the morning
ritual” for the coffee sleeves.
As such, it might be worth to also think about increasing the
number of purchase occasions as a way to stimulate sales. Exclu-
sive partnership with specific retailers might be a quick, natural
progression in the category. Though, redesigning completely
new product experiences (such a coffee sleeve) might take the
industry players a little longer to develop and implement.
First The Trousers teams up with many different experts. One
of them is Nicole Abramson, a senior shopper marketing expert
whose experience includes strategic program development for SC
Johnson at major retailers including Target, Whole Foods, CVS
and Walgreens. Her recommendation to promote lottery sales
is to think in terms of brand partnerships, in particular during
new product launches, where brands may also be able to help
invest in additional in-store and digital advertising (for example,