The Ontario Lottery Corporation has nearly completed an assessment of its $23-million account and expects to begin an agency search through the Advertising Review Board early next month.
Tom Dawley, acting vice-president of marketing, says the olc will again likely use more than one agency, but adds since the review process has not been completed, is unsure whether it will continue as a pool system.
The three-year contract term expires March 31 for the agencies remaining in the Crown corporation’s pool: Padulo Integrated and Promanad Communications of Toronto and Brooks Marketing Resources of Sault Ste. Marie.
If the olc decides to dissolve the pool, it would be to the sound of cheers from the advertising community that has criticized it as demeaning and stifling.
Philip Rowlatt-Smith, Dawley’s predecessor who left the olc Jan.1 after five years, introduced the pool to cut costs by controlling creative strategy.
The process calls for the olc to first develop marketing plans and decide creative requirements for each campaign before briefing some agencies in the pool who would later pitch for the project.
The olc, which saved $875,000 in 1992 with the pool, made a profit of $562 million in fiscal year 1993-94 and expects the same for 1994-95. PS
