New York Lottery wanted more people to play their game Take 5. The problem wasn’t awareness; 76% of New Yorkers knew about the game. They just didn’t find it compelling enough to play.

We needed to rebrand the game and give casual players a reason to play more often. Our audience, the “driven pragmatists,” believed the only thing worse than losing was missing out. Which inspired a simple truth: “Take 5 is your easiest chance of winning.”

The brief was to frame the game’s 1 in 9 odds in a way that made taking a chance on winning irresistible.

Our approach was to create a film that inserted Take 5 into a familiar movie moment people already knew to be hopelessly and epically unwinnable. In Odds of Love, the 1 in 9 chance of winning Take 5 is positioned as the obvious choice when compared to the near impossible odds of falling in love at first sight. Winning by playing Take 5 is way more likely than winning at romance.

We leveraged the classic genre of Hollywood musicals to tell the story of a couple who quickly realize the odds of a happy ending aren't great, then go their separate ways to play Take 5 from the New York Lottery.

It’s been proven that TV and cinema ads drive New York Lottery sales. By creating a film that felt like a real movie moment and showing up at the cinema and on television, we tied our creative message to pop culture, contrasting New York Lottery’s Take 5 with the impossible odds we commonly see characters facing onscreen.

In making a full fledged mini-musical, we were able to share a rather practical message; the odds of playing Take 5 are way better than falling in love at first sight.

Odds of Love played in cinemas across New York in June and July of 2019. Playing in cinemas allowed us to make it feel even more like a real movie musical, with the sweeping cinematography and choreography coming to life on the big screen. The spot was also featured on broadcast as well as digital, capturing the imagination of a city that loves musical theatre.

Like the movie musicals it was inspired by, Odds of Love was a hit with New Yorkers, giving them a new reason to play Take 5. In digital video, the spot received over five million impressions, in cinema approximately 200,000 impressions and it aired over nine thousand times in broadcast.

In addition to getting significant press pickup in publications like Adweek and Shoot, we moved the needle on key metrics. Take5 saw lifts ad awareness (+5.8%), familiarity (+5.5%), and purchase intent (+6%) while the campaign was in market.

Furthermore, the spot helped drive a streak of 35 consecutive positive sales weeks for the game.