Lottery’s brand position is Good Fun so humor supports the objective
The South Dakota Lottery’s advertising campaign featuring the “Delivery Guy” started back in summer 2021 with a fun idea for the Lucky For Life TV spot.
“Instead of focusing on the winner who gets $1,000 a day for the rest of their life, let’s tell the story of the poor guy who has to deliver the crazy purchases the winner makes,” explained Wade LaRoche, Director of Marketing, South Dakota Lottery.
“We thought the character had potential, so we wrote a couple more ads developing the Delivery Guy as a no-nonsense character surrounded by co-workers who love to have fun and play the lottery. We got a really great response from the first three spots, so we decided to keep the character going.”
Delivery Guy is portrayed by Brandon Potter. La Roche described him as “an accomplished actor who has appeared in commercials, movies, TV shows and on the stage. Our advertising agency had worked with him previously and recommended him for this role.”
The mission of the first Delivery Guy ad was get the word out when Lucky for Life moved to a daily draw in July 2021. “Lucky for Life had already been a game that was very popular with our players, so we thought the ad would resonate with them,” said LaRoche. “At the same time, we made Delivery Guy spots for our Lotto and Instant campaigns to ran later that year.
Broaden Ad Campaign
Not surprisingly, the response to the new ad campaign was great. So the lottery decided to include the Delivery Guy in its 2022/2023 Winner Awareness, Holiday, Beneficiary Awareness and Responsible Gaming campaigns.
“For each campaign, we also recorded videos to be used exclusively on social media. So, all told, we have made seven commercials and 18 social media videos in the last two years,” explained LaRoche.
For the 2022/2023 ads, the lottery developed new scenarios for how Delivery Guy would manage his workload. LaRoche shared a description for each of the four ads:
- “Winner Awareness – When it comes to his job, the Delivery Guy takes pride in being a well-oiled machine. But his co-worker Gary keeps winning lottery games at the most inopportune times.
- Holiday – Santa leaves for his Christmas deliveries but forgets to load the South Dakota Lottery tickets onto his sleigh. There’s only one man who can make the delivery and save the holiday.
- Beneficiary Awareness – For the Delivery Guy, there are a lot of benefits to working on Saturday. Just like there are a lot of benefits for South Dakota when you play the lottery. Even the Delivery Guy may play once in a while…
- Responsible Gaming – The warehouse crew is about to celebrate 500 days without an accident, but then the Delivery Guy’s nemesis Gary messes up. It turns out to be a good reason for the Delivery Guy to remind everyone to be responsible,” ended LaRoche.
In addition to the social media videos, the lottery also featured the ad campaign at retail. “We also incorporated the Delivery Guy on point of sale items throughout our holiday campaign. That consistency has really helped with our brand awareness,” said LaRoche.
Humor is always effective for a lottery ad. “Our brand position is ‘Good Fun’ so humor supports that objective while being memorable and setting an enjoyable tone for a product we want to be entertaining. It resonates with our players and gets the attention of potential players as well,” said LaRoche.
Advertising Awards
The Delivery Man ads have won several awards. “The commercials and social videos have won awards at the South Dakota American Advertising Awards and the Telly Awards while the Lucky for Life spot was a finalist at the 2022 NASPL Batchy Awards,” said LaRoche.
As to the next flight of TV ads, the Delivery Guy will probably make an appearance. “Based on the response and results we’ve gotten from the campaign, we could definitely see some new Delivery Guy adventures in the future,” he said.
South Dakota Lottery TV Ads