The agency’s position at the moment is “talk to the state,” but we (and someone at Adweek) hear that McCann Erickson may have drawn the winning numbers in the New York Lottery creative pitch.
We first heard of the alleged McCann win near the end of the day Friday, when an unverified source named the Lottery as McCann’s newest client and sources outside the agency told us that they’d heard murmurs of victory coming from New York.
That would appear to be news to McCann. This morning, an agency spokesperson told us that the shop has no comment because, Adweek article aside, the State of New York has yet to name the lucky party. Longtime incumbent DDB says the same.
Here’s what we do know: after launching the review back in April, the New York State Gaming Commission narrowed the field to McCann, DDB and FCB Garfinkel in August. The New York Lottery’s annual media spend “approaches $50M,” and Adweek also claims that IPG’s UM won the media pitch.
Updates as we receive them; based on the gossip, we expect the official decision to arrive soon.