Indian Railway’s Lucky Yatra campaign by FCB India, Mumbai, won the Grand Prix in PR.
The railway company turned every train ticket into a lottery ticket for Mumbai commuters to incentivise ticket purchase (The high volume of train travellers makes it impossible for the government entity to verify each ticket, leading to significant annual revenue losses from fare evasion.)
Lucky Yatra offered one commuter the chance to win INR10,000 ($117) every day and INR50,000 ($585) every week. They simply had to visit a dedicated website and enter their PNR or ticket number to find out if their journey paid off and claim their reward.
Speaking about the winning work, PR jury president, Tom Beckman, global chief creative officer at Weber Shandwick, said the jury, ‘We were looking for work that was designed for the jungle and not the zoo, and that means that we're looking for work that is designed to survive in the real world without artificial support.’
He noted that the jury were looking for real solutions to real problems. ‘Let’s be honest, in this industry, sometimes we see fake solutions to real problems. We also see real solutions to fake problems, sometimes even fake solutions to fake problems. We were really probing, and investigating the work.’
As for the Grand Prix, he said it ticked all the boxes, ‘It was a real solution to a real problem. It was a type of solution that can only come from our industry and the way that this solution was brought to life, it ticked all the boxes that we typically want to take in our industry, likeability, attraction, engagement and newsworthiness.’
As for originality, he remarked it’s typical of jury rooms to question if ideas are new or unique, but noted that ‘a really important perspective that any jury should bring, is that, is it the first, or is it the best?… It's not about like, Oh, I've seen a lottery promotion activation before. This is the best lottery promotion activation I’ve ever seen.’
