Pause Before You Play Responsible Gambling Campaign Strategy

Pause Before You Play Responsible Gambling Campaign Strategy - Prevention Action Alliance

Origo has been a partner and collaborator with Prevention Action Alliance for many years. Prevention Action Alliance works alongside a coalition of organizations, titled Ohio for Responsible Gambling, which is a group or agencies across the state that work to prevent and reduce problem gambling by promoting responsible gambling and building awareness around resources that help people who may be at risk of (or are experiencing) a gambling disorder.

Since 2015, we’ve helped create a long list of awareness and outreach campaigns for this group. For example, Be the 95% was Ohio’s first responsible gambling awareness campaign. And in 2017, it rebranded to Get Set Before You Bet to deliver a prevention message to a wider audience. Now, with new challenges facing Ohio with the introduction of sports betting, Origo was proud to help rebrand this initiative to Pause Before You Play, positioning this action-driven message as Ohio’s main responsible gambling prevention campaign.

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Pause Before You Play (PBYP) was initially launched as a sub-campaign in the fall of 2022 after the Governor of Ohio signed legislation to legalize sports betting at the beginning of 2023. Origo started by conducting surveys and interviews with sports bettors from around the state and problem gambling clinicians and experts to develop the main campaign message and tactics. A year later, considering the exponential growth of sports betting and the success of the sub-campaign, it was decided to replace the main campaign, Get Set Before You Bet, with the main messaging and visual approach of Pause Before You Play

Once a new creative approach was approved, Origo developed a custom website, revamped the campaign’s social media presence, filmed and produced two high-energy and informative PSAs for TV and radio, and developed accessible toolkits of community resources in several languages for community partners to use in their local outreach efforts.

Origo overhauled the entire web experience for the rebranded campaign. The design and photography created are action-oriented and sports-themed to reflect the prevalence of sports betting in the state. Although the imagery now focuses primarily on sports, we expanded the messaging and language to include information about all types of betting. An online self-assessment quiz was also created and added to the site to allow visitors to rate their risk for problem gambling in just two minutes.

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Origo also revamped PBYP’s social media presence on Facebook, X (Twitter), and Instagram. The new imagery captures the action and excitement of sports in a way that’s easily recognizable and relatable for the target audience. ORG continues to share important information about responsible gambling and other valuable resources for Ohioans through all their social channels.

To formally reintroduce the campaign, Origo created 30-second and 15-second PSA videos. One of our biggest productions to date, these PSAs required a significant amount of direction so that the footage framing would leave room for the intricate on-screen graphics developed by our 3D animation team. A custom soundtrack was developed to elevate the sports experience and set the stage for the two sportscasters, who comment on a young man as he “warms up” before the game by making a responsible betting plan. The PSAs were launched on both cable and streaming TV and deployed as advertisements on social media. An audio version of the PSA was created for radio advertising.

The final step of this rebrand was to create an implementation plan. Origo updated the general campaign assets to assist in outreach efforts. These include digital display ads, print ads, handouts, and more. These assets are also available for free co-branding and can be found on the Community Toolkits section of the PBYP website.

The campaign was a huge success, and as of February 2024, the various assets have generated 1.3 million impressions. PAA and Origo continue to use the new branded campaign to share valuable information and resources for all Ohioans.

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