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Pro•LINE: AOR COLLECTION

The internet ruins everything… And it had its eye on PRO•LINE, Ontario’s Sports Wagering Game.

QUICK PAUSE FOR SOME PRO•LINE BACKGROUND:
For years, PRO•LINE has been a staple in Ontario for those who wager on sports. Players make their picks at physical kiosks in convenience and grocery stores, get physical tickets, and collect their winnings from the same stores.

With online wagering gaining popularity fast, the real business challenge for PRO•LINE was to sustain sales in the wake of digital.

Holding your picks in your hand somehow builds a stronger emotional connection to them than if you had made the same picks online.

To find this nugget, we went into research and listened to some people who wagered regularly on PRO•LINE. The only thing it had on digital wagering was the fact that it WASN’T digital. People loved feeling connected to their bets during the game and especially if their tickets one. There was something special about the tactile nature of the game. PRO•LINE was more than a bet; it felt like a part of them.

We personified that “feeling” into Something That would eventually become an icon for brand and help democratize sports wagering in the province.

We called it a Sports Gut and it broke through on for two reasons.

1. Relatable - It was the common ground between the hardcore and casual fans. Whether you were picking a winner based on the last 2 seasons of matchup stats or just the jerseys each team was wearing that night, it was your Sports Gut talking.

2. It was a brand new visual. It was little odd but that was part of its appeal and what helped define the comical ways a Gut would interact with its host.

Sports Gut ended up being a four year campaign that always offered the same advice: listen to your sports gut.

Well, because if you didn’t you could lose out on the good times and the cash. Here’s a spot we used to launch the concept:

Year two was based on a simple insight - THere’s a lot of people you could listent to, but the only one that counts is your sports guts.

This second year was designed to give players more confidence, encouraging them not just to listen to their Sports Guts, but to trust them. An added subtext to the work was that it’s much more fun to rub a physical ticket in a naysayer’s face than an online wager.

when online wagering really started to threaten the PRO•LINE business, We used Sports Gut to illustrate how great it feels to collect real cash.

This is another unique benefit of PRO•LINE. The minute you get your picks right, your ticket is immediately eligible to be cashed in at any store with an OLG terminal (pretty much every single convenience and grocery store in Ontario).

whether people liked SPorts Gut or not, it made a cultural impact that the brand had never experienced prior.

#sportsgut became part of the social vernacular among Ontario sports fans and this guy won Halloween.

then we blew sPorts Gut up, along with everything else.

With no legs, there came a time when PRO•LINE’s new objectives were too much for a gut to carry. The brand wanted to reinforce how many sports were actually available to wager on with PRO•LINE - Hockey, Football, Baseball, Soccer, and Basketball. Rather than building a different campaign for each or telling disconnected Sports Gut stories, we decided to connect the 5 sports with a strong visual technique and a powerful moment: the moment you realize your picks are right.

In our sixth year, PRO•LINE wanted to jump on Toronto’s refreshed interest in basketball.

The brand had just expanded their basketball offering and it was going to be big news for fans. Since it was still a pretty new offering on PRO•LINE though, our job was to tell Toronto’s basketball fans they could elevate their game experiences and make them feel even bigger. We wrapped the city in PRO•LINE green and a consistent message, “Basketball Just Got Bigger.”