Ad Rules Threaten North Carolina Lottery’s Latino Marketing Push
The North Carolina Education Lottery’s executive director Tom Shaheen told state lottery commission members last week that the lottery was seeking permission to begin advertising its products in Spanish in order to better promote games amongst North Carolina’s expanding Hispanic community and to mitigate the recent drop-off in sales brought about by the economic downturn.
Although up year-on-year due to regulatory changes introduced in 2007 that allowed for higher payout percentages, Shaheen said that lottery sales for November 2008 were down 9 percent on the previous month as the lottery began to feel the effects of the wider economic climate. “They’re still playing. I just don’t think they’re buying as often,” Shaheen said.
The lottery’s executive director added that new games and promotions would be introduced in order to boost lottery performance, but suggested that an increased marketing presence amongst North Carolina’s Hispanic population, one of the fastest growing in the United States, would also be likely to increase sales. US Census Bureau figures show that North Carolina’s 570,000-strong Spanish-speaking population grew by 8 percent between July 2007 and July 2008, against overall state population growth of just over 2 percent.
But while the state has already used Spanish-language material to demonstrate how lottery money is used to fund education campaigns, the lottery has yet to produce any adverts in Spanish to directly market lottery products. And any new campaigns would have to accommodate North Carolina’s lottery advertising rules that arguably prohibit marketing campaigns aimed at specific ethnic groups.
The 2005 North Carolina Education Lottery Act requires the North Carolina State Lottery Commission to ensure that “no advertising may intentionally target specific groups or economic classes”. At last week’s commission meeting, commission members told the lottery to come up with a firm proposal regarding Spanish-language advertising that takes into account the 2005 law. However, the prospect of lottery adverts geared to the local Latino community has already generated criticism amongst local media.
An editorial piece in Saturday’s Greensboro News argued that allowing Spanish lottery ads would be certain to undermine the spirit of North Carolina’s lottery legislation. As the newspaper put it, “No es posible... The legislature clearly meant to avoid exploitation of particular ethnic groups. If Hispanics tend to spend less than other groups on lottery tickets, then they deserve credit for frugality.”
Meanwhile, the Charlotte Observer dismissed suggestions that if advertising in Spanish targets a specific ethnic community, then so, too, does advertising in English. “You could argue that not running lottery ads in Spanish is discrimination against the state's residents who don't speak English,” the paper said. “It isn't. It is refusing to exploit residents that frequently come here from poor communities, have cash to spend and may be more susceptible to the lure of easy money.”
North Carolina currently has the tenth largest Hispanic population in the United States. Lotteries in states with larger Latino populations, such as California, Texas and Florida, already produce Spanish-language marketing campaigns. The California Lottery, for example, has contracted Spanish-language marketing agency Casanova Pendrill to develop lottery advertising campaigns using the ‘Sueña Grande’ (‘Dream Big’) slogan for state and MegaMillions lottery games since 1998. Casanova Pendrill’s work for the California Lottery has even won several national marketing awards.
The Florida and Texas lotteries also use specialist advertising agencies to develop Spanish-language adverts for print, television and radio, while the Texas Lottery produces specialist ‘how to play’ guides on its lottery games for local Hispanic communities, said Bobby Heith, the Texas Lottery’s director of media relations.
Heith told GamblingCompliance that the Texas Lottery’s upcoming demographic study would likely confirm the significance of Latinos among the lottery’s overall customer base. “[Latinos] are a growing demographic in our state, but we have engaged with our Hispanic customers for some time,” he said.
Florida Lottery spokesperson Shelly Safford said that on top of regular Spanish-language advertising campaigns, the Florida Lottery ensures that all information and forums on its website are available in Spanish as well as English. “We’ve found that a large percentage of our lottery players come from the Hispanic market and we don’t want to exclude them,” Safford said.
“I wouldn’t say that particular games or products are specifically geared towards Spanish-speaking communities, but we do try to use our advertising and marketing campaigns in order to target this market. It is a pretty important part of our strategy.”
Although up year-on-year due to regulatory changes introduced in 2007 that allowed for higher payout percentages, Shaheen said that lottery sales for November 2008 were down 9 percent on the previous month as the lottery began to feel the effects of the wider economic climate. “They’re still playing. I just don’t think they’re buying as often,” Shaheen said.
The lottery’s executive director added that new games and promotions would be introduced in order to boost lottery performance, but suggested that an increased marketing presence amongst North Carolina’s Hispanic population, one of the fastest growing in the United States, would also be likely to increase sales. US Census Bureau figures show that North Carolina’s 570,000-strong Spanish-speaking population grew by 8 percent between July 2007 and July 2008, against overall state population growth of just over 2 percent.
But while the state has already used Spanish-language material to demonstrate how lottery money is used to fund education campaigns, the lottery has yet to produce any adverts in Spanish to directly market lottery products. And any new campaigns would have to accommodate North Carolina’s lottery advertising rules that arguably prohibit marketing campaigns aimed at specific ethnic groups.
The 2005 North Carolina Education Lottery Act requires the North Carolina State Lottery Commission to ensure that “no advertising may intentionally target specific groups or economic classes”. At last week’s commission meeting, commission members told the lottery to come up with a firm proposal regarding Spanish-language advertising that takes into account the 2005 law. However, the prospect of lottery adverts geared to the local Latino community has already generated criticism amongst local media.
An editorial piece in Saturday’s Greensboro News argued that allowing Spanish lottery ads would be certain to undermine the spirit of North Carolina’s lottery legislation. As the newspaper put it, “No es posible... The legislature clearly meant to avoid exploitation of particular ethnic groups. If Hispanics tend to spend less than other groups on lottery tickets, then they deserve credit for frugality.”
Meanwhile, the Charlotte Observer dismissed suggestions that if advertising in Spanish targets a specific ethnic community, then so, too, does advertising in English. “You could argue that not running lottery ads in Spanish is discrimination against the state's residents who don't speak English,” the paper said. “It isn't. It is refusing to exploit residents that frequently come here from poor communities, have cash to spend and may be more susceptible to the lure of easy money.”
North Carolina currently has the tenth largest Hispanic population in the United States. Lotteries in states with larger Latino populations, such as California, Texas and Florida, already produce Spanish-language marketing campaigns. The California Lottery, for example, has contracted Spanish-language marketing agency Casanova Pendrill to develop lottery advertising campaigns using the ‘Sueña Grande’ (‘Dream Big’) slogan for state and MegaMillions lottery games since 1998. Casanova Pendrill’s work for the California Lottery has even won several national marketing awards.
The Florida and Texas lotteries also use specialist advertising agencies to develop Spanish-language adverts for print, television and radio, while the Texas Lottery produces specialist ‘how to play’ guides on its lottery games for local Hispanic communities, said Bobby Heith, the Texas Lottery’s director of media relations.
Heith told GamblingCompliance that the Texas Lottery’s upcoming demographic study would likely confirm the significance of Latinos among the lottery’s overall customer base. “[Latinos] are a growing demographic in our state, but we have engaged with our Hispanic customers for some time,” he said.
Florida Lottery spokesperson Shelly Safford said that on top of regular Spanish-language advertising campaigns, the Florida Lottery ensures that all information and forums on its website are available in Spanish as well as English. “We’ve found that a large percentage of our lottery players come from the Hispanic market and we don’t want to exclude them,” Safford said.
“I wouldn’t say that particular games or products are specifically geared towards Spanish-speaking communities, but we do try to use our advertising and marketing campaigns in order to target this market. It is a pretty important part of our strategy.”
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