The South Dakota Lottery Commission gave state government’s favored advertiser Lawrence & Schiller $950,000 to rebrand the state’s gambling activities. Here’s what we get for our money:
Lawrence & Schiller lose the state outline and script, introduce a new font for the state (thus dissolving brand unity across departments), and adopt a flatter, less colorful graphic that by itself gives even less clue as to what it stands for. (But they do mash the T’s in “LOTTERY” together to sneak a nice subtle π into the logo, hinting at the Pythagorean Illuminati who really run things around here.)
We also get bongos. And jackalopes. And chili dogs.
We really need to plant our flag in the ground and tell our story. Good fun is who the lottery is,” said Sam Gotham, an associate account executive for the firm.
“You can see where we’re going with this. Either way, South Dakota wins,” he said.
Gotham explained that if the lottery was a musical instrument, it would be bongo drums that signal fun and draw interest.
“That’s what we want to be. That’s what we want to communicate,” he said.
As an animal, the lottery would be a jackalope — he actually said jackrabbit, but showed an image of the mythical jackalope that is a rabbit with horns of a deer or antelope — or if a food, chili dogs with everything on them.
“Entertaining, social, more optimistic,” he said [link added; Bob Mercer, “SD Lottery Touts ‘Fun’ in New Logo and Slogan,” Aberdeen American News, 2016.01.08].
Wow—for $950,000, some cheap ad companies would only give us one or two metaphors.
We also get a new lottery website, GoodFunSD.com, registered last month by Lawrence & Schiller and soon to be populated with that new awesome logo and lots of information about how much fun it is to sit alone at a video terminal tapping a screen and hoping to win money. But will the new website play bongo music and offer an option to order a chili dog?
To paraphrase the Teutonic Titwillow from Blazing Saddles-“How Owdinawy.”
Wow..I could have messed with ‘good enough’ for half that amount ;)
Looks like this was a make-work project to shuffle taxpayer money to Larry the Shiller. If this actually needed to be done the state could have hired a new college graduate in-house for $50,000 plus benefits to turn out a better product than Larry the Shiller produced for $950,000.
It seems to me that Larry the Shiller produces very little benefit for South Dakota taxpayers and a whole lot of benefit for Larry the Shiller, which enables Larry the Shiller and its employees and owners to make great political contributions to the SD GOP.
It pays and pays and pays to be a donor to the SDGOP. Best return on investments ever!
Pretty sure $950,000 is the annual agency budget for all agency related marketing projects including media buys etc., Cory, not just the price for revising the graphic design of the brand.
Bleah. What a missed opportunity. To take some cobbled-together crap logo and actually DO something with it… instead, we get a generic oh-so-trendy flat, plain, simple logo. Looks more like a logo for the Louisville public transit authority.
Actually, crossgrain, the logo is probably the right design all things considered.
Here’s why:
http://www.powerball.com/powerball/pb_howtoplay.asp
Nothing sexy, I admit, but…well.. you get the picture, right?
The Powerball… so nice they used it twice. :-)
Standard textbook marketing brand positioning theory, based on this U.S.P. (Unique Selling Proposition):
“Where is the ONLY place you can buy a Powerball number in South Dakota?”
(So meat-head simple, nobody ever thought of it.)
Ugh. And I still keep seeing those curved terminals on the ‘L’ and the first ‘T’ where the ‘O’ fits in… all I see is a swirling ‘O’. Flushing your money down the toilet I guess. Should have added a swoosh or a gradient or a false bevel to keep true to our ‘Welcome to South Dakota – Please turn your calendar back 10 years’ ethos.
Swirling “O”? Exactly.
Flush your money down the toilet? Exactly.
Powerball City: No frills gambling thrills.
A special tax on the mathematically impaired.
You’re right, it ain’t pretty, crossgrain, just perfect. :-)
Mr. Lawrence Schiller is right about one thing, while I don’t play the lotteries and let the poor people who don’t understand math pay for some of my taxes, I do like chili dogs. Chili dogs with cheese and onions and those little green pepper slices of jalapeno juice and horseradish. I might buy a ticket if you got a chili dog with it.
Hey grudz, you might be onto something… How about if you got one free chili dog for every 10 tickets you buy?
One free chili dog for every 4 tickets I buy. That’s a $3 chili dog and $1 donation to the state coffers.
Grudz,
Your right it is a voluntary tax since the buyers of those tickets hoping to cash in on the winnings will probably be struck by lightening a few times before they see any winnings. It would sure have to be a really good chili-dog though. Maybe a real Chicago style dog rather than a cheap c-store chili-dog that has been under a heat lamp for 8 hours or from the day or week before.
Lightening through lightning is one way to enlightenment, init?
Just checking to see how long before you caught that. Try to keep up.
You know, if we dedicated all of the video lottery income to pay good teachers the problem might be solved, eh Lar?
Like the logo change, not much new in good old South Dakota. One year you are running a dominant state political party. The next year your former company, which you had an interest in just two years ago and still shares your name, is getting a $ 950,000 state contract.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iyp9fh-u4w8
For what does the capital L stand, Lottery or Lawrence? Maybe loser?
When the Powerball jackpot has swelled to $900,000, who in the hell cares what the L looks like?
Sorry Roger,but you left out three zeroes. It is 900 million bucks and I have the only winning ticket. I will share some of it.
Roger
Good point what difference does it make what the L looks like, then why advertise at all?
I like the old one better, waste taxpayer money.
I agree—I like the old one better, waste taxpayer money.
How much does the head of South Dakota Lottery earn? Who sets the wage? What is the total lottery spends on advertising versus total spent for lottery addiction?
According to Open.SD.Gov, SD Lottery executive director Norm Lingle currently makes $84,425.63 a year. I assume that amount is set internally. I don’t know the lottery spending ratios you ask about off hand, but I know that from Deadwood gambling revenues, we spend about 20% on tourism promotion and less than 1% on gambling addiction counseling.