Incentive Today • July/August • 1995
The National Lottery has brought benefits to the promotional business, but there could be changes ahead given that the public is dissatisfied with the way it is being handled. Olivene Murray reports
EXTRACT FROM THE ARTICLE:
John Donovan, managing director of Don Marketing, which produces a range of scratch-card games for on-pack promotions, also believes that the National Lottery has helped increase the popularity of scratch cards. But printer’s errors are a nightmare for scratch card producers, he admits. One of the horror stories he relates is when the Daily Mirror published an incorrect combi nation of ‘called numbers’ for its bingo-type game and left thousands of readers thinking they had won the game.
Donovan is more open than Venters about the tricks that the public get up to in order to cheat in the games. This even includes children tampering with cards which are then sometimes unwittingly sent in by parents. Don Marketing also now insists on videoing the opening of all prize claims so that players cannot dispute the validity of the games.
With Donovan quoting a cost of 4p per card to run a scratch card promotion, it is hardly surprising that everyone from oil companies to brewers is rushing to take part. And Donovan says his company can deliver scratch cards to any promotional agency with as little as two months’ notice. He guarantees security, even to the extent of having cards printed in the United States by printers Dirtier Brothers, who are specialists in printing scratch and lottery tickets and even have armed guards securing their plant.
Lucky Numbers (PDF)