Challenger Brand Issue: The Lottery’s biggest scratch off ever; successfully launched with no time
on the clock.

Insights
In May 2009, the National Football League (NFL) began allowing state lotteries to form partnerships with teams in their home markets. Within a few weeks, the Baltimore Ravens Cash Fantasy Scratch-off game was born - offering Lottery players the chance to win $1,000,000 in cash, plus one-of-a-kind experiential prizes like Ravens season tickets for life or travelling with the Ravens team to an away game.

With just eight short weeks from the approval of the scratch-off ticket concept by the NFL to the beginning of the 2009/2010 pre-season, GKV and the Maryland State Lottery had a very short window of opportunity to ramp up marketing efforts and launch the game. And, unlike most scratch-offs which have a short shelf life, this marketing effort and the fans’ enthusiasm needed to be sustained for a projected seven months to sell out the 5 million tickets worth $25 million in gross sales.

Challenger Brand Solution: Emotional Connection
With the deep passion the community has for the Ravens, we quickly realized that this product provided an opportunity to tap into the strong emotional connection between fans and their cherished home state sports franchise. GKV recommended a comprehensive digital marketing strategy that involved social media and grassroots marketing to meet the goal of selling 5 million tickets.

Facebook: We launched a Facebook page for the contest, which included user-generated fan photos, surveys on pre-game tailgate activities and previews of new television commercials - all designed to keep up interest in the scratch-off game over time.

Twitter: A Twitter account was set-up to serve as the Lottery’s portal for the promotion and we collaborated with several established Ravens blogs and had them tweet their followers about following the Lottery.

Blog: We created a dedicated Lottery blog to help promote and sell the product, which also became the source for most things related to the game (ie. prize drawing and winner announcements, winner photos and stories, and news).

Microsite: We worked with a partner to design and build a microsite that enabled players to manage their contest entries and provided the Lottery with a means to communicate directly to the most ardent fans. The site provided the complete fan experience.

Event Marketing: For every Ravens home game, we sent teams into the parking lots and pre-game gathering spots to engage customers in dialog about the promotion and sell product.

Results
The scratch-off ticket sold out (5 million tickets) three months ahead of initial projections. Over the course of 10 home games, almost $150,000 in direct sales was realized, which led to a new Ravens Cash Fantasy game in 2010 with even more Ravens Fantasies to win.