Juno Award-winning pop duo Loud Luxury must feel a little like they’ve won the lottery with their latest project.
The London, Ont. group has partnered with Timmins, Ont. singer-songwriter Preston Pablo and the OLG to create a club-worthy version of the lottery corporation’s instantly recognizable “Winner! Gagnant!” chime, which plays whenever one of the crown corporation’s lotto terminals scans a winning ticket.
(Rights restrictions prevent The Message from embedding the reworked version of the jingle, but it can be heard here.)
The OLG has been using tone to denote a winner since 1993 and with an average of 180 million wins per year, the crown corporation claims that it is among the most-played “songs” in Ontario.
Director of media relations Tony Bitonti said that it has become synonymous with the crown corporation, because it is played multiple times daily at its more than 10,000 retail partners.
“Whether it’s a $2 win or a $70 million win, it happens thousands of times a day across the province, so why not celebrate it?” said Bitonti. “It rang a bell, let’s put it that way.”
The original 17-note tone was created by a group of OLG employees when the corporation was rolling out new lottery terminals in the early 1990s. The spoken phrase “Winner! Gagnant!” was added during a 2008 terminal update.
It has since gone on to become an entrenched part of the OLG brand. Bitonti said that when focus group participants were asked what came to mind when asked to think about OLG, they identified the “happy dance” that once formed part of the marketing for the Lotto 649 brand, as well as the “Winner! Gagnant!” sound. “We know that it’s synonymous with winning,” he said. “Every time it’s played, we do know that someone has won a prize, big or small.”
While the original “Winner! Gagnant!” jingle has an almost 8-bit sound slightly reminiscent of ’80s video games, Loud Luxury introduced its fuller, dance-mix version on the main stage at the electronica-focused Veld Music Festival in Toronto last weekend.
The OLG is also playing the new song at Toronto-area concerts by artists including Alvvys, Arctic Monkeys, The National and 50 Cent throughout August and September, as part of an activation called “Bring Home the Win.”
“Growing up in Ontario, it’s impossible not to know the iconic ‘Winner! Gagnant!’ win tone, so we hope our 2023 version brings people the same energy and joy,” said Loud Luxury in a release. “This song gives off that winning energy and I can’t wait for it to be heard,” added Pablo (who is also featured in a new campaign for Pepsi’s Rockstar Energy Drink).
One of Bitonti’s wishes for the updated version of the song is that it will replace the original in OLG’s lotto terminals. “If that could be done that would be great, but we’re not quite there yet,” he said.
BBDO, Behaviour, Essence Mediacom, T1, and Weber Shandwick were agency partners on the project.
