The Office of Responsible Gambling

Potlucks & Gambling

The goal was to persuade local Chinese, Arab, Vietnamese and African communities to seek help if they were struggling with gambling addiction. The challenges we had to overcome were:

1) the stigma within these communities associated with having a gambling problem in the first place
2) creating one idea that could work across multiple nationalities

As an art director, I worked with our team to conceptualise two creative directions and design how they could look.

PITCH CONCEPT 1 : POTLUCK TV SERIES

Connecting and sharing over a meal was a powerful factor that our four audiences had in common.

We pitched a four-episode reality series: at a communal meal, our communities discuss their attitudes to various problems, including gambling addictions. One member of the group then reveals that they struggled in the past and discusses their journey to getting help.

The meal’s host leads the discussion and facilitates the understanding that gambling needs rehabilitation, but that that rehabilitation is partly the community’s responsibility. When sharing problems with friends is as easy as sharing a meal, everyone benefits.

STAGE 1 OF CAMPAIGN

STAGE 2 OF CAMPAIGN

PITCH CONCEPT 2 : STIGMA BUILDS WALLS

Our second concept was to bring the ‘social stigma’ that communities place on ‘problem gamblers’ to life by filming an interactive social experiment with our communities.

We’d invite our communities to choose words made out of building blocks that they feel represent gambling addiction and to then build a wall on camera.

The big reveal is a member of their community shown behind the wall, admitting to struggling with this issue, their difficulties in asking for help and what steps they took next.