Evening The Odds

Playwin's third position in the Derby owes much to marketing

Ever since the Brand Derby started including entertainment and services in its listings, brands from both categories have scored high.

Playwin's third position on the podium, however, is unique in that this marks the first time a brand in the Rs 50,000-crore lottery business has proved a success.

Playwin, India's first on-line lottery from Subhash Chandra's Essel group, was voted a very successful brand launch by 41 per cent of the Derby respondents.

This is matched by its performance. Playwin's first-year turnover was Rs 670 crore. It has already crossed Rs 1,000 crore in September and the company expects to generate Rs 2,000 crore this year.

Luck of the draw? No, more a result of careful marketing. For starters, during its 15-day launch period, Playwin was marketed as a "family entertainment game".

This was crucial because, as Sawal Das Jethani, senior manager, marketing, Pan India Network Infravest, which owns the brand, explains, "The perception is that lotteries are only for the socio-economic categories (SEC) C and D. We didn't want Playwin to become another gambling equation."

Much of the brand-building exercise included consumer education. Of the Rs 100-crore marketing spend in the first year (March 2002-03), Rs 10 crore to Rs 15 crore was spent on information.

Playwin's campaign launch was divided into three phases. The first phase talked about the size of the winnings.

The second focused on transparency and highlighted the fact that players could select their own numbers. The announcement of draws and winners on television added to the transparency.

Says Kamal Basu, executive vice president, Saatchi & Saatchi (the agency handling the Playwin launch), "Worldwide, lottery draws are telecast live. That element was missing since the results were always under wraps."

Finally, Playwin addressed social causes. The campaign, featuring a child said, "Every time you play, he wins. Because 20 per cent of the revenue collected goes to the state government."

Occupying consumer mindspace was half the battle. Retail space was the other. As Jethani points out, "Conventional paper lotteries are sold at small, insignificant street corners. Abroad, malls and grocery outlets retail lotteries. We perceived huge potential here."

But retailers were wary of the new concept and were required to pay a huge deposit of Rs 3.5 lakh for the Playwin machine. So how did retailers become Playwin sharers?

Initially, this was a problem. To break even, a retailer requires Rs 8,000 in Playwin business per outlet per day.

"For good retailer profits, we were targeting Rs 15,000 per day in sales, almost comparable to his primary business," says Jethani. Naturally, there were few takers.

Thus, the company was forced to re-strategise. Playwin introduced variable schemes, starting as low as Rs 1 lakh. The only criterion was that the outlet should attract 400 to 500 footfalls a day.

Retailers paying the Rs 3.5 lakh deposit gained rewards. Apart from the interest on the deposit, they got 5 per cent on total sales, 1 per cent on prizes above Rs 5,000 and 1 per cent on prizes generated from his outlet.

The result is that the Playwin network has grown from 248 retailers in March 2002 to over 4,000 today.

The one crucial area where Playwin drew the wrong number was in choosing its target audience. Playwin gunned for SEC A and B segments on the assumption that the lower income groups would follow automatically. The latter did come in, but the original targets didn't.

But the company was quick to shift focus and SECs C, D and E now account for 80 per cent of Playwin's sales.

Playwin uses three communication media for its new audience "" vernacular press, regional channels and point-of-purchase promos. The channels work well in a fragmented market, especially since Playwin is present only in 13 states.

Playwin currently offers six games, but new launches are planned all the way to March 2004.

Says Jethani reveals, "Tentatively, we will have one game launch every month with a mix of either a huge jackpot or ones that generate lots of winners."

But this is not the last move. As Nishi Suri, executive director, Ogilvy & Mather (the agency handling two games) says, "To keep the interest and the brand alive, it's important that we focus on the mother brand "" Playwin "" again."

India now boasts at least five more on-line lottery players "" Essar's Fortune (a joint venture with CAIRS), Videocon group's V1, Modi Enterprises' Sunshine, Best & Co.'s Smartwin and Shapoorji Pallonji's Dhandhanadhan.

Jethani welcomes this competition. On-line lotteries account for 1 or 2 per cent of the Rs 28,000-crore organised lottery market, so the scope for growth is huge. As he says, "If there is no active player, the market will never expand."