Those Who Win the Lottery Will Spend Money Frivolously

By Jordan Teicher 

How rich is “Yeah, that kind of rich?” According to DDB NY’s new spots for the New York Lottery, the answer is: rich enough to buy laughs.

“Invasion” (above) shows a guy pranking his friend with an elaborate alien takeover just to snap an embarrassing photo of his reaction. Apparently wealth hasn’t gone to this guy’s head, since he only cares about posting humiliating pictures of his boys online.

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“Writer’s Room” (below) is the better of the two spots and tells the story of a regular guy who buys a team of writers captained by Andy Richter, so they can feed him quality jokes through an earpiece. I don’t think Andy Richter would be my first choice for my comedic squad, but he does beat Paul Shaffer. As the punchlines add up, pay attention to the quick cuts at the end. The protagonist even cracks people up at a funeral, which is one of those small touches that’s offensive enough to be funnier than most PC commercials allow.

Everyone wants to be rich, and it would’ve been easy for DDB NY to play it safe with fancy cars or private islands, but they sold the lotto effectively by making insignificant pleasures like telling jokes seem worthy of huge investments. And, they did it without coming off as pretentious.

After all of the lecherous cousins and friends hold out their hands for some of your Powerball millions, spending for the sake of humor might not be such a bad idea. Credits after the jump.

Chief Creative Officer: Matt Eastwood
Group Creative Director: Richard Sharp
Group Creative Director: Mike Sullivan
Creative Director:  Scott Cooney
Creative Director: Sean Labounty
Head of Production: Ed Zazzera
Executive Producer: Walter Brindak
Group Account Director: Leo Mamorsky
Management Supervisor: Kelly Gorsky
Account Supervisor: Heather Olson
Account Executive: Kemi Adewumi
Account Executive: Tarina Hesaltine
Production Company: O Positive

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