Sumita Vaid
Media

Apollo hunts for AOR for online lottery venture

Industry sources peg the business at Rs 20 crore

With its creative agency in place (as reported by agencyfaqs! in FCB-Ulka wins Rs 20-25 crore Apollo online lottery business, on July 29) the Apollo Group has launched an agency hunt for its AOR account. Confirming the move, a company spokesperson said, "We are in the preliminary process of evaluating some media agencies." Beyond this, the company official refused to furnish any information. However, a bit of snooping around yielded the names of some of the agencies in the fray for the Rs 20-crore account. These include Lodestar, Universal McCann and Carat.

The company, however, refuses to put a figure to the business, saying that it would be "medium" with the potential "to be large". In any case, handling media for online lottery is a tricky affair. A senior media planner says, "The challenge lies in being able to give the best media buying solution, which is also the most cost effective, since in the online lottery business, results are announced everyday on television."

Thus the task for the agencies currently working on the media pitch would be to deliver "creative and cost effective media buying solutions", observes an executive close to the event.

To put things in perspective, the launch of the Apollo online lottery venture is just a month away. What is not clear at the moment is whether it will be operative on a national scale or will be rolled out in particular zones. For the record, Raja Kanwar, son of Apollo Tyres chairman and managing director OS Kanwar, looks after Apollo's lottery venture. According to media reports, Apollo Tyres promoters have invested around Rs 150 core in the nationwide lottery operation.

The group's huge investment in the lottery segment is understandable. With a clutch of players jumping onto the bandwagon, this market will see big-time action in the coming months. While Essel Group's Playwin Infravest has been around for a year, Modi Enterprises plans to launch its lottery brand Sunshine India Lottery very soon. Also in the pipeline is Essar Group's Fortune lottery, which was supposed to have been rolled out in West Bengal, Karnataka and Kerala around the third week of April 2003.

According to a memorandum submitted to the Union Government by the Federation of Lottery Ticket Associations of India, paper lotteries generate around Rs 50,000 crore annually. Industry pundits expect the online lottery business to grow between Rs 10,000-20,000 crore annually in the next three years. Much of the growth is expected from expanding the market, as only 20 per cent of Indians are estimated to have played lottery in any form. © 2003 agencyfaqs!

Have news to share? Write to us atnewsteam@afaqs.com