In June Lotto NZ released its Powerball commercial, ‘Lost’, the fourth instalment of its ‘Imagine’ series with DDB. However, the ad turned out to be something a little more. A month after its release Lotto NZ revealed that the ad was actually a ticket.
Hidden throughout the commercial were Lotto numbers, and viewers were challenged to find seven of them for their chance at a grand prize of $10,000 and 10 runner-up prizes of $1,000.
Lotto NZ created an interactive website to turn the search for the hidden numbers into a game, and drip-fed clues on social media and even the live Lotto draw.
Damon Stapleton, regional chief creative officer Australia & New Zealand, says “we wanted this ad to bring people one step closer to experiencing the thrill of a ticket.
“It’s not just the main character in the ad who’s searching for the lost ticket – it’s also the viewer”.
Annemarie Browne, Lotto NZ’s chief marketing officer says Lotto NZ is all about giving back to Kiwis.
“So why shouldn’t our ads give something back to viewers too? That’s the thought we went in with when creating ‘Lost’ – we wanted to create an ad that would both entertain viewers and reward them for their time.”
According to Lotto, New Zealanders spent a total of 872 days of combined time on the site searching for the lost numbers – and 53,000 people succeeded in finding seven numbers.
