For the 2023 holiday season, we crafted a campaign to promote giving the gift of Scratch (Scratch-Off Lottery Tickets). This involved both product promotion and a digital experience, designed to spread the magical feeling of this special time of year.
For the digital component, we created a set of happy, cheerful, zany holiday emojis for our audience to send and share with their communities. We partnered with GIPHY to offer expressive stickers for public use that convey the joy of giving and receiving. These emojis were also available for download to their personal phone keyboards, so they could spread holiday delight to their friends and families.
As for goals, we had reach/awareness in mind for initial phases of the campaign – and engagement for the latter, emoji portion. Sales were also top of mind – but that comes with two critical considerations 1) our Lottery client does not have the ability to correlate physical sales with any digital efforts, and 2) Holiday Scratch tickets typically sell out fast, with limited promotion.
Challenge: Launch a low budget, social-first Holiday Scratch campaign amid fierce seasonal ‘noise’ and many competing, largescale campaigns within same quarter.
The brief told us to plant the idea of giving the gift of Scratch, among our two core audiences – one a more traditional lottery-playing, slightly older bunch, the other a slightly younger, more tech-savvy group.
Insight: The holidays are a busy time online, but we had another social insight telling us to capitalize on stickers – a new-ish form of expression (via things like GIFs or emojis). Apple, Meta, and Google had recently made changes for easier use of ‘stickers’ or sticker-like expression.
Action:
Other challenges overcome:
Unique aspects:
Final thought: This campaign bridged the gap between physical and digital while engaging both traditional and potential players. It demonstrates the power of low-budget, interactive social initiatives when executed strategically and creatively.
This campaign ran from November 21 – December 24, 2023 (34 days).
Key achievements
Other success factors:
Exceeded expectations: Small budget delivered big impact, exceeding internal performance benchmarks - particularly on Facebook, where majority of audience lies. Demonstrates reach and engagement of two distinct target audiences.
