This Request for Proposal (RFP) is a competitive procurement issued by Washington’s Lottery to establish and award a contract for Marketing and Advertising Services.
We discovered one of the real benefits the Lottery provides is not just the payout – it is the intrinsic entertainment of imagining and showing people the power of their own imaginations. Even more important, it is what people love about playing the Lottery. People have imaginations… we just need to foster them. This discovery completely changed our relationship with potential players and shifted our advertising and communications approach. By moving away from marketing individual products and instead focusing on encouraging our players’ imaginations, we have built a solid consumer-focused foundation for communication, which turned into the DOI brand. While we continue to encourage people to play lottery games, we design campaigns to actively engage our players’ imaginations and inspire them to talk about the lottery with us, about us, and with their friends. It’s great to be in the conversation! The best agency will be the one with the greatest expertise that is relevant to our business — building brand, increasing product recognition, and opening Lottery up to new demographics of players.
Background:
Washington’s Lottery sales broke the $800 million mark in fiscal year 2019 for the first time in its history, Exhibit A – Additional Information, and we are committed to becoming a billion dollar lottery within the next few years. Washington’s Lottery is a state agency that was created in 1982. Our directive is to generate sales in an effort to continually increase our contributions to our beneficiaries, Exhibit A – Additional information. We are governed by State laws and regulations, which create boundaries within which we must adhere to when marketing and advertising our products. We like to say, “Let’s be funny but Government funny.” Our current game portfolio consists of seven draw games; Powerball, Mega Millions, Lotto, Hit 5, Match 4, Daily Game and Daily Keno. In addition to the draw portfolio, we also launch approximately 50 scratch ticket games a year. Our scratch ticket sales represent somewhere between 65%-70% of our annual sales. We sell our products through more than 3600 retailers statewide which places us in very diverse communities. We are one of the largest vending lotteries in the industry with almost 2000 vending machines placed throughout the state, and vending is 47% of our market share. We are similar to many businesses in that we are trying to reach a younger demographic. After decades of following a standard marketing formula of advertising our games, jackpots, and big winners, the Lottery’s player base is aging. Despite new games, promotions, and creative TV campaigns, over 50% of the state is not playing. The challenge is how do we make playing Washington’s Lottery fun for all Washingtonians and fulfill our mission to increase our contributions. Through research, it is very clear that our core player base is comprised of older players and we are not attracting a younger audience. We have developed a player profile that we call the “Mill-X,” Exhibit A – Additional Information, in order to focus on who we best believe is a future lottery player.
Scope of Work:
The Lottery seeks a marketing and advertising partner, to collaborate with and develop plans that increase brand awareness and contributions to our beneficiaries, promote our products, and increase sales. An ideal partner will also help increase engagement, likability, and reach, as well as understand the Lottery’s strategic goals and help to achieve these goals. Plans mentioned within this scope of work include:
Marketing Plan – a comprehensive document/blueprint that outlines the advertising and marketing efforts for the coming year. It incorporates business activities involved in accomplishing specific marketing objectives within a designated time frame.
Advertising Plan – outlines the creative and media tactics, budget, schedule and other elements based upon the agency and marketing strategic plans.
Communication Plan – a comprehensive plan to increase brand awareness, trust and likability, to help our business achieve optimum results in the media.
Media Plan – the process by which marketers determine where, when, and how often they will run an advertisement in order to maximize engagements and ROI. An effective media plan will result in a set of advertising opportunities that target a specific audience and fit in with the Lottery’s marketing budget.
Strategic Plan – an organization’s process of defining its strategy, or direction, and making decisions on allocating its resources to pursue this strategy. It may also extend to control mechanisms for guiding the implementation of the strategy.
All Marketing, Advertising, Communication and Media plans must incorporate pre-identified metrics that define performance of the successful bidder. Bidders participating in this RFP will be evaluated on proven and demonstrated creativity, resourcefulness, and capability to help the Lottery meet or exceed future sales goals, beneficiary contributions, and Lottery initiatives. The purpose of this procurement is to identify and select the bidder Lottery believes is the best advertising and marketing solutions partner. The successful bidder shall provide services including, but not limited to, the following:
· Strategic advertising and promotional planning;
· 3-year strategic advertising/marketing plan;
· Print, broadcast, and promotional creative planning, execution, and production;
· Print and broadcast media planning and buying;
· Public relations expertise and assistance with key communication issues;
· Assisting in the development of the Marketing plan;
· Developing an advertising plan to support Lottery initiatives;
· Budget control and shared responsibility for cost control;
· Researching brand tracking and awareness, and advertising effectiveness;
· Developing presentations regarding marketing initiatives for the Lottery Commission and sales and marketing meetings, and industry conferences;
· Assisting with retailer and community events;
· Development of a digital strategy to support the Marketing and Advertising Plans;
· Developing, managing and executing a social strategy to promote community engagement across social channels to build engagement, and monitoring and analyzing conversations through all social networks;
· Managing and executing promotional services;
· Providing analysis, advice, and support for key Lottery initiatives to include, but not limited to:
o Interactive Video Wall
o Lottery App
o Winning Awareness
o Responsible Gambling
o Asset Collaboration
The successful bidder will be expected to perform all functions normally required of a full-service advertising agency. Agencies that do not offer all of these services are invited to join together with providers that offer a service.
· Media Services
· Public Relations: Product Support
· Public Relations: Corporate Communications
· Promotional Events Services
· Research
· Web Services Management
· Retail Marketing Programs;
· Social Channel Management
In addition to the broad functions listed above, the successful bidder will manage the account within specific guidelines. The following areas of critical concern will be described in detail in this RFP:
· Adequate Staffing Levels and Seniority;
· Advertising Plan Development;
· Public Relations: Comprehensive Communications Support;
· Communications Plan Development;
· Budget Development;
· Timely and Efficient Accounting and Billing; and
· Adherence to Bidding Processes.
Due Date:
January 9
Address:
Jenna Johnson Jenna.Johnson@walottery.com 360.480.1611
Washington’s Lottery
Attn: RFP #012, Jenna Johnson
814 4th Ave E
Olympia WA 98506
Relevant agencies worth considering include Hunter PR and Kaplow PR.