The New York Lottery’s new brand platform asks players to imagine their wildest dreams – all the seemingly fantastical scenarios that could be brought to life with the cash from a big win.
Created by McCann New York, ‘Can You Imagine?’ is the New York Lottery’s first major brand campaign in nearly a decade, and one aimed at capturing the imagination of the younger generations, while unifying every game, touchpoint and expression of the brand under one positioning: “The New York Lottery Keeps New Yorkers Dreaming Bigger”.
“For several years, the New York Lottery has marketed individual games independently, without a single tagline connecting them,” explain Cuanan Cronwright and Leo Barbosa, EVPs and executive creative directors at McCann New York, speaking with LBB. “The opportunity was to create a more emotionally resonant role for the brand in New Yorkers’ lives.”
The catalyst for the new direction then came from a simple truth. “New Yorkers are dreamers,” they share. “This state has always attracted people with outsized ambitions, and for more than 50 years, the New York Lottery has helped fuel those dreams by offering moments of possibility.”
The campaign launched with two 30-second spots directed by Biscuit Filmworks’ directorial duo, Los Pérez. For the shoots, the team constructed full-scale versions of a New York bodega and gas station inside a studio in Greenpoint, Brooklyn – everyday environments that were “transformed into elaborate canvases for imagination,” say the ECDs. “[It] was a vivid reminder that people’s extraordinary dreams often start in the most everyday places.
“Los Pérez brought extraordinary craft and imagination to every aspect of the production,” they add. “They have a rare ability to take a relatable human insight and elevate it into something visually rich and cinematic without losing authenticity… It was remarkable to watch them obsess over every detail, from the pacing of the performances to the texture of each frame.”
With the new platform comes a fresh, colourful design language, including a redesigned logo. The new 90-degree ‘lottoscape’ symbol was inspired by the perspective-shifting power of the imagination, say Cuanan and Leo, using rotating imagery to create unexpected visual juxtapositions that make the world feel like it’s “tipping into possibility”.
The dynamic designs extend across the entire brand ecosystem, from billboards and subway takeovers to digital banners, social posts, retail displays, and point-of-sale materials in more than 13,000 locations statewide.
This imagery is combined with surreal stills from photographer Todd Anthony. “We aimed to ensure that some scenarios are extravagant, while others are smaller or delightfully personal,” say the ECDs. “The common thread is that each one captures a truth about dreaming bigger.
“The scenes were chosen to mix aspiration, humour, unexpectedness and relatability, and to show that winning can mean anything from buying a helicopter to do your groceries, to filling an entire refrigerator with artisanal cheese.”
To bring the brand deeper into the everyday lives of New Yorkers, the brand has also launched in-person activations, including a luxury car takeover that lined the streets of Manhattan. These street-level activations have been combined with mobile billboards and contextual OOH placed outside luxury apartments, high-end hotels, designer stores and car dealerships, where the headlines appear to interact with the aspirational world in front of the viewer.
“The idea is simple: wherever New Yorkers encounter the campaign, they should be inspired to think, ‘What would I do if I won?’.”
The biggest challenge was making this idea emotionally resonant, while also broad enough to work for each New York Lottery game. Unified by “one powerful commonality: each one sparks imagination”, Cuanan and Leo describe how every game became aligned under the new platform’s flexible visual identity, tone of voice and real-world presence. “In that sense, the challenge became the opportunity: not to launch a campaign, but to reimagine the role the New York Lottery plays in New Yorkers’ lives.”
This ‘role’ is one of sparking imagination – a catalyst for aspiration that takes hold the moment someone buys a ticket. “One of the most exciting parts of playing the Lottery often happens before you even win anything,” share the ECDs. “They start thinking about what they’d do, where they’d go, and how their life might change. That instant of possibility is universal, emotional and deeply relatable.”
‘Can You Imagine?’, then, turns every New York Lottery ticket into a prompt for imagination, inviting participation in a simple, conversational way. “Strategically, it was powerful because it could unify everything the brand does. And creatively, it gave us a line that could flex effortlessly across TV, radio, social, OOH, retail, and experiential,” they add.
“Most importantly, it transformed the Lottery from something people simply play into something they feel.”
This content is sourced from lbbonline.com and is shared for informational purposes only.
