Who: OLG with BBDO Canada for creative and strategy; Steam Films for production; Nimiopere Editorial and Vanity VFX House for post production; Vapor Music for sound; and Essence Mediacom for media.
What: “Bring Home the Win,” a new platform for its brands created in partnership with BBDO. The launch includes a holiday themed short film, “Winning Pieces.”
What: “Bring Home the Win,” a new platform for its brands created in partnership with BBDO. The launch includes a holiday themed short film, “Winning Pieces.”
When & Where: The film is in market in cinema, online and broadcast TV over the holiday season, and is part of a larger campaign including OOH, and social.
Why: The platform is a strategic repositioning, replacing the Play for Ontario platform which was more singularly focused on community support. “Bring Home the Win,” redefines OLG wins (and even losses) as a win for the community at large, since OLG donates 100% of the profits back into the province. “It’s not only a win for you. Every play is a win for others too,” wrote the brand in a release.
“Our goal was to give the OLG masterbrand a more defined and impactful role in OLG’s marketing ecosystem as well as create cohesion across everything they do,” BBDO's associate creative director, Nick Doerr told The Message.
“Winning Pieces” serves as a supporting metaphor for OLG’s ability to create experiences that transcend the monetary prize, and actually bring people together. “We believe winning is more than a result, it’s a feeling,” said OLG’s VP brand and marketing, Maxine Chapman.
The donation: Aside from spending lottery profits on government priorities, OLG gives back to the community through corporate sponsorships, funding for the communities that host each OLG gaming site, and direct donations to participating local charities.
How: Doerr said the three-and-a-half minute long “Winning Pieces" started with a question: "What if a single play (in this case a lottery ticket) had the power to help bring friends home for the holidays?”
The result was a story of three childhood friends who, while home for the holidays, buy a lottery ticket together. A year later, only one of the characters returns home for the holidays because the other two are too busy—until they realize that they have the winning Lotto Max ticket, and only 24 hours to meet in person to redeem it together.
The rest of the ad shows the two friends racing to get home as the clock ticks down, and while one makes it on time, the other is stranded by car troubles. But he ultimately makes it on time (with less than seven minutes until their ticket expires) thanks to the kindness of a local city bus driver.
Doerr said the film is a statement piece for OLG, aimed at younger Ontarians. The inspiration was classic John Hughes’ holiday movies, “hence our protagonist’s discovery of a soon-to-expire winning lottery ticket and the thrilling race against time to claim it.”
And we quote: “In the world of flashy lottery and gaming ads, filled with celebrity endorsements, we set out to do something different. A story about friendship, nostalgia and shared dreams, centred around believable characters in unbelievable circumstances,” –BBDO's associate creative director Nick Doerr.
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