McCann gets ticket for Fortune's online lottery

McCann-Erickson India has won the advertising account of one of Fortune's soon-to-be-launched online lottery games. The agency has been awarded the account following a full-fledged pitch held last month. The lottery company has confirmed that five agencies were invited to pitch for the business, and two (one being McCann) were subsequently shortlisted for a final round of presentations. "We finally selected McCann because we felt they had a better balance of strategy and creative, as compared to the others," Geeta Sethi, head of marketing, Fortune, told agencyfaqs!. She did not, however, reveal the identities of the other four agencies.

Fortune is the online lottery brand promoted by Cairs (Computer Aided Information Research Services Pvt Ltd), in association with Essar Telecom. Sethi informs that the Fortune brand will be launched in the country "sometime in April", with the unveiling of its first online lottery game. She adds that the first game will be "quickly followed by another game", without divulging specific timeframes. Both the lotteries are from the Government of Nagaland stable, she reveals.

Incidentally, the account that McCann has just won is that of the second lottery - the advertising account of the ‘launch game' was awarded to RKSwamy/BBDO roughly five months ago, following a pitch held in September last. Sethi adds that BBDO was not asked to pitch for the second game, as Fortune wanted the two games to be handled independently. "Both games required very different approaches in terms of their communication, so we took a conscious decision to give the advertising to separate agencies," she says.

Given the competitive environment in the online lottery segment, Sethi chooses to keep mum on spends as well as on the planned communication strategy. Natural, considering Fortune will be competing against Playwin - the Rs 300-crore online lottery venture of the Essel Group - which has managed building a fair amount of equity since its launch less than a year ago. Fortune will also be up against the paper lottery market, which is valued at roughly Rs 50,000 crore. "Creating a differentiation is very important, so brand communication will be extremely critical for us," Sethi agrees. She adds that talks with television channels for the live telecast of the draws "are also underway". © 2003 agencyfaqs!