Powerball Believe - equating winning the lottery with women’s suffrage and taking down the Berlin wall

These posters are meant to act as teasers. Eventually these inspirational they will be replaced with headline executions encouraging people to “Believe in Something Bigger” with Powerball. So hang on a second, a women’s suffrage march, you know the ladies who Were imprisoned and foce-fed when they fought for their rights, the fall of the Berlin Wall - chipped away by thousands of people fleeing the east, and the first man to walk on the moon after years of brutal training.... Then there's Bethany Hamilton, the teenage girl who lost her arm in a shark attack but kept surfing, and Robbie Knievel’s infamous jump over the Grand Canyon. These things have what in common? "Believe"

Like I said about the Powerball "snowfall" commercial; I have no problem with that at all. It's pretty and only one man "wins" the red ball. But these images aren't showing anything lucky (In Bethany Hamilton's case one might argue she was unlucky as a shark mistook her for a big tasty turtle, though she is lucky to be alive). Here we are showing people that are dedicated to working hard, the women who want their rights, the astronaut who after gruelling training in the air force and at NASA steps on the moon, the thousands of people who made it across the fields to the Berlin wall and took it down brick by brick. These aren't people who idly sit by and buy a lottery ticket, these people made their fortune by working for it. So we're equating a lottery ticket with being force-fed in prison now, are we? There's not a just a disconnect in the idea here, it's also a bit too easy to mistake for a series of other billboards currently peppered all over California. These billboards with Nelson Mandela on it and the line "What can one person do?" Inspiration - pass it on? They're from Values.com and are simply meant to inspire. I find tone of these "believe" billboards to be similar enough to Values' billboard to be mistaken for a similar campaign.

In short, it's not selling me a lottery.

And while I welcome the step away from your usual slapstick when selling lotteries, I feel that the billboards fail. YMMV.

Team Credits
DAVID & GOLIATH:

Chief Creative Officer: David Angelo
Executive Creative Director: Colin Jeffery
Art Director: Todd Rone Parker
Copywriter: Daniel Kelly

Head of Production: Carol Lombard
Executive Producer: Christopher Coleman
Sr. Producer: Nicolette Spencer
Digital Producer: Diego de la Maza
Associate Digital Producer: Erica Tremblay

Managing Partner, Director of Client Services: Brian Dunbar
Account Director: Stacia Parseghian
Account Supervisor: Janet Wang