A new campaign from the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation (OLG) seeks to draw the attention of younger South Asian and Chinese communities toward horse racing with a multilingual musical approach.

Developed in partnership with Balmoral Multicultural Marketing, “Let’s Hit The Track” features three rap videos – one each in Cantonese, Mandarin and Hinglish, a mix of Hindi and English – set amid the atmosphere and excitement of the race track.

Donovan D’Souza, executive creative director at Balmoral Multicultural Marketing, tells strategy that the agency sought to reposition horse racing as as an entertainment package rather than just a sport, while leveraging rap music to appeal to under-35 demographics.

“Our strategy was super simple, to use entertainment to sell entertainment,” D’Souza says. “We’re selling the track as this entertainment package. You get to visit the restaurant, you get to have a good time with your friends. Since rap is such a growing phenomena back in India and in China, we thought let’s do a song that talks about all these features.”

D’Souza says he worked with the Chinese team to develop the various translations of the song, which largely conveys the same message buts includes subtle variations in each performance and references tailored to each culture.

“We didn’t want another horses-and-hats ad, we wanted to show horse racing the way we saw it – high-energy, high-speed and full of heart,” D’Souza says. “We brought in voices and visuals from cultures that live for rhythm, thrill and storytelling.”

Fifteen- and 30-second OLVs, plus six-second social-media cutdowns, along with video display and programmatic banners were launched this week for the campaign that will run through August. South Asian and Chinese audiences will be targeted through over the top and connected TV advertising on YouTube, Meta, Instagram and in Sing Tao Media.

OLG selected Balmoral as its Indigenous and multicultural communications services vendor of record after a competitive review in September.