Jay Finks, Oklahoma Lottery Commission; Building Strategic Solutions by Challenging Status Quo

Jay Finks, Director of Marketing & Administration, Oklahoma Lottery Commission (OLC), presented “Building Strategic Solutions by Challenging Status Quo.” He examined ways that OLC is finding solutions for a profits shortfall. Finks said the move to higher instant ticket price points (PP) put profit margins in the crosshairs. The $1 and $2 ticket sales continued to lag which exacerbated the profit strain.
“OLC adopted a program where we flipped the presentation of the instant tickets. Instead of higher price points first we have presented the tickets from lowest price point to highest with a key strategy that the higher PP consumers are the savviest and will find what they want. This builds the opportunity to drive traffic, awareness, impulse purchase and maybe stabilize a PP mix heading in the wrong direction.”
As a result of this program, combined $1 and $2 sales now account for 39% of PP mix, up from 35%.
“We did see a bump in sales off the bat but sales have been trending down in Oklahoma (mostly due to 35% issue) but I think this is an opportunity not based in sales but based in PP balance.”