程阳：美国佛罗里达彩票“庆银盼金”

 25年银婚50年金婚 http://t.cn/zYF1nbj

Florida Lottery Hopes to turn Silver into Pure Gold

The Year of the Flamingo brand transformation is bringing new excitement to the Florida Lottery as its celebrates 25 years of providing revenue for education.

The Florida Lottery has a new look – a fresh, modern appearance with a bit of sassy personality, coinciding with the Lottery’s silver anniversary this month. Over 25 years, the Lottery has contributed more than $24 billion to help support education at all levels in Florida, from pre-kindergarten programs to state colleges and universities, including funding for the Bright Futures scholarships given to more than 600,000 students since their inception in 1997.

Under the banner “Year of the Flamingo,” the Lottery set forth a whole new brand strategy with the goals of providing bigger games, brighter futures and more winning moments, according to Secretary Cynthia O’Connell, who returned to lead the Lottery in February 2011 after being involved in the startup back in 1988. “The Lottery is a very engaging and exciting enterprise, so [the new logo] reflects today’s lottery as well as the future,” said O’Connell.

Along with the obvious visuals of the new brand, the Florida Lottery has created a new vision statement and a new organizational culture that focuses on Florida’s Way to Play – supported by the five pillars of Flamingo Pride, Integrity Above All, Funding Tomorrow, Driving Excitement and Optimistic Moments. “Our employees were a critical part of our rebrand, and they were part of everything we did. That was really important to me, because they have to live the culture and deliver the promise of the new brand moving forward.”

The rebranding also reemphasizes the Lottery’s commitment to education. “The Florida Lottery was voted on by citizens of the State of Florida to help enhance education and to fund education, but we have a lot of people that come to Florida who aren’t really sure about that,” explained O’Connell. She added that at the Lottery’s “ice cream socials” – events at colleges and universities that honor Bright Futures scholarship winners – many students didn’t know those scholarships were primarily Lottery funded. “We have a long way to go to educate people about our connection to education. This rebranding helps facilitate that with message points about education.”

Behind the New Brand

Recreating an organization is never a simple process, and it does take time. But it doesn’t necessarily have to be expensive – an important consideration for lotteries in particular. By using a phased-in approach and spreading it out over two fiscal years, Florida managed to do the brand transformation in a cost-efficient manner. “At just over $1.1 million, I think that’s probably the lowest-cost rebrand in the history of the industry, quite frankly,” said O’Connell. One money-saving tactic was to let inventory of all materials that included the old logo deplete naturally, only ordering items with the new logo as the old ones ran out. “We were very smart about it, because we are still a state agency, and we had to do things in a way that was transparent and responsible.”

The wheels first started turning when O’Connell reviewed everything at the Lottery after she came on board in 2011. “Having been at the Lottery at startup...it was very clear to me that it was time for a refresh.” With the support of the Governor’s office, the Lottery began the process with a series of focus groups with players and retailers to determine what they liked about the existing brand, what they didn’t like and what they wanted from their Lottery. One thing they discovered was that the iconic flamingo needed to stay in the new brand in some form. The research “solidified the emotional attachment to the flamingo by both players and retailers.”

The Lottery then enlisted the help of FutureBrand to conduct extensive visioning processes and aspirational exercises that resulted in a series of prototypes, which then went through further testing with more focus groups. The brand platform was developed – the five pillars mentioned earlier – to identify what the brand stands for. “The five pillars lay the foundation for us to begin our new journey,” said O’Connell.

Next in line was the development of a creative strategy to go with the new brand, more testing, and finally production. There were also discussions on the logistical issues affecting the Lottery’s corporate retailers to make sure they were excited about it. “We went through every stakeholder group to make sure that we were doing the right thing and that they too believed, as we did, that it was time for a refresh. And we got a collective and resounding yes to move forward.”

Because of the phased-in approach necessary to keep costs to a minimum, it will be another few months before all the new materials are in the marketplace. “It shows you that with the proper planning, lead time and attention to detail, it doesn’t have to cost millions to rebrand an organization,” explained O’Connell. “It can be done for much less than that. You just have to be methodical about it. We’re real proud of what we have done.”

Marching Forward

As the rebranding continues, Lottery officials hope it will expand upon the momentum of the past year, which included a number of recent milestones:

- The year ending June 30, 2012, was the best year in the Florida Lottery’s history, with sales of $4.4 billion and education contributions of $1.3 billion. It was a the perfect lead-in to the Lottery’s anniversary year.

- Sales in November, with the record Powerball jackpot, set Florida Lottery records for daily, weekly and monthly sales. Florida is the Powerball sales leader, generating far more in sales than the next-biggest Powerball state. “Floridians love Powerball,” said O’Connell, noting that the decision to join the game in 2008 was done “in a very conscious fashion by a former lottery director to move the Lottery forward.”

- The Lottery launched a $25 scratch-off game in September, Millionaire, which was a takeoff on the original scratch game that started it all, but at a price point to mark the 25th anniversary. “It is by far our best ticket and sales are still very strong. It leads us to believe the $25 price point will be part of our portfolio going forward,” at least one every fiscal year.

-          In the fourth quarter of calendar 2012, the Lottery introduced full-service vending machines. “They give us additional points of sale in our high-performing retailer locations,” noted O’Connell. “They are not taking away from total sales or displacing total sales, they are adding to total sales, and that’s important.”

Several things are on tap in the coming months that should keep energy levels high. The Year of the Flamingo has blossomed into the Lottery’s current “Just Imagine” advertising campaign, which will continue for the next couple of years. And current strategy involves treating every month as equal, and not simply accepting that seasonal trends are inevitable and reducing the attention accordingly. “We have promoted our scratch products effectively, putting more money behind them,” said O’Connell. “It works for us, because it floats the boat up for all other games. It provides the freshness for the Florida Lottery all the time, because scratch games have different themes and they have different advertising approaches, and when you have that kind of freshness in the marketplace all the time, it helps you significantly.”

Some of the Lottery’s existing draw games will also be rebranded to give them energy. Instant ticket price points will get some serious analysis to ensure the games are driving as much sales as possible. And officials are looking at adding another multistate game. With the recent agreement to add Powerball in California, the Florida Lottery is the last remaining U.S. lottery to have only one multistate game. But as it did before joining Powerball, Florida will examine the situation carefully. “We’re going to protect our own games to make sure we can minimize any cannibalization prior to a multistate game entry,” said O’Connell.

The Lottery is rapidly developing its social media presence, which got a welcome boost with the introduction of a Guy Harvey ticket in March 2012. A marine wildlife artist and activist, Harvey has a big following in Florida. “Guy Harvey has thousands of fans, so we connected to the Guy Harvey fan base that helped launch our social media platform,” said O’Connell. Included were second chance promotions such as resort fishing trips and a grand prize with Guy Harvey himself, which played very well with the Lottery’s social media followers. The $2 scratch tickets, a collector’s series of Guy Harvey images, have been very popular with strong sales. “ The game brought in a new younger demographic to the lottery industry and helped broaden our appeal.”

A player’s club is also in the works – the Lottery is currently in a competitive procurement to choose a vendor.

A Little National Awareness

While the brand transformation is changing the way Floridians see their Lottery, another fairly recent project has put the Florida Lottery into the national limelight. In April 2010, the Lottery opened a draw studio at its Tallahassee headquarters, moving game drawings in-house. And when the Multi-State Lottery Association was looking for a new site to conduct Powerball drawings, the Florida Lottery made a bid. Powerball drawings had previously been held at Universal Studios Orlando. “For economic development reasons, I wanted to keep [the Powerball draws] in Florida,” said O’Connell. “Our draw studio provided a reasonable and cost-effective approach to do that, and we had state-of-the-art facilities to do the kind of digital broadcasts that Powerball needed.” She added that over 150 stations nationwide now hear “live from Florida” and it provides good national exposure every week since the first drawing was held at the Lottery’s studio in January 2012.

And just maybe there will be more industry recognition for the Florida Lottery in the future. 2007 legislation authorized the Lottery to apply for and hold patents for unique lottery games, play styles, methods and systems that are developed by its product development specialists. Three such patent applications have been filed thus far. One, involving a method of administering a game of chance, has already been published. Two more are pending, one involving a method of enhancing the security of instant tickets and another concerning a lottery validation and payment method.

Clearly, there is no shortage of imagination and dedication in Florida, and the hard work that delivers results. The Florida Lottery has met its challenges with gusto, and there does indeed appear to be a bright future.