Objective

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.

Strategy

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:

• Concept: Crafted animated holiday emoji set for GIPHY and social media.
• Content: Promoted both physical tickets and online experience with gift-themed emojis.
• Experience: Partnered with GIPHY, aligning emojis with trending search terms for visibility.
• Social: Organic efforts used emojis on brand content, while paid efforts targeted core audiences and retargeted with emojis to encourage engagement.

Other challenges overcome:

• Bridging physical product and digital experience. (In the state of Washington, online lottery games are strictly prohibited. Found a way to breathe digital interactivity into otherwise physical Scratch game.)
• Targeting two audiences with varying tech awareness.

Unique aspects:

• Leveraged GIPHY for organic reach beyond paid social. Branded lottery in digital ways; Aligned to modern communication/expression.
• Successfully engaged both traditional and potential players.

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.

Results

This campaign ran from November 21 – December 24, 2023 (34 days).

Key achievements

• Reach: 7 million across Facebook and Instagram.
• Engagement: 2.4 million GIPHY views + 830,000+ impressions and 668,805 engagements on paid social.
• Organic success: Emoji set reached 3 million views by January 1st.
• Brand impact: Holiday Scratch resonated with both players and non-players; Impact noted in brand survey* among respondents (Washingtonians – both players and non-players), among busy quarter (Oct-Dec).

Other success factors:

• Seasonal alignment of creative with GIPHY search terms.
• Connection of physical product to digital experience.
• Appeal to both audiences (traditional and prospective lottery players).
• Team and clients reaching mutual understanding of what ‘stickers’ are, how they work, and how to use them.

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.

Media