May Scheve Reardon, Executive Director, Missouri Lottery, provided a humorous look back on the lottery’s advertising, including its long-running “Welcome to Luckytown” campaign. This was an ad campaign that drew opposition in the state legislature when the Missouri Lottery was new. Now as a state legislator turned lottery executive director, Reardon occasionally faces criticism when her former colleagues don’t like a lottery ad.
“The Missouri Lottery is a $1.6 billion business and we spend $16 million on advertising. One of the ways we try to extend the value of that $16 million is by humor. Humor is like a beauty pageant; it’s in the eye of the beholder. When you try to put humor into ads, you don’t know how it’s going to come out.”
