Agency-by-Agency Data and Analysis
NYS Gaming Commission
CCM’s analysis of $201 million in spending found that community media outlets only received 2.6% (about $5.2 million) of the total advertising in the records the Gaming Commission provided.
OpenBookNY data indicated that from FY2012 to FY2022, the Gaming Commission spent $421,899,065 the most of any agency for media placement services with state-contracted media placement advertising agencies, in this case, McCann Erickson USA, Inc. (McCann) and OpAD Media Solutions LLC (OpAD).
In the spring of 2023, in response to our FOIL request, the Gaming Commission (GC) sent us three batches of thousands of pages of redacted media placement invoices and summaries from McCann from FY 2015 through FY 2023. We tallied up the spending in these responsive documents, which comprised about 74 campaigns for different lottery products, like the largest campaigns we saw for Instant Games Jan-Feb-March Bonus Series–a $10.4 million campaign in 2017, and Instant Games Spring Bonus Series–a $9 million campaign in 2017. The media placements we analyzed totaled over $201 million. We didn’t count out-of-home (OOH) media placements (like bus stop or subway ads) in our calculations since we were specifically interested in comparing how much the GC spent on digital, print, TV, and radio advertising and whether community media got a fair share of advertising dollars versus traditional media outlets or social media, tech, and ad-serving companies.
According to the records the GC provided, CCM’s analysis of the $201 million in spending found that community media outlets only received 2.6% (about $5.2 million) of the total advertising dollars spent. Traditional digital, television, radio, and print media outlets received 62% ($133 million) of this pool of advertising dollars. Social media and technology companies like Spotify and Pandora received 5.5% ($11 million) of the media placements, and state and local sports and live events won 17% ($33 million) of this pool spent on media placement. Ad-serving/targeting companies like Google’s Doubleclick comprised 13.3%, or 26.7 million, of the agency’s advertising buys.
FIGURE 1
Ad Spending by Fiscal Year and Media Placement Category
NYS Gaming Commission
Hover over the bars to see amounts and percentages for each category.
- ▬ Community media
- ▬ Traditional media
- ▬ Unspecified traditional media
- ▬ Social media and tech companies
- ▬ Ad serving/targeting companies
- ▬ Sports and live events marketing
Sports and live events marketing refers to items categorized in the data as “State & Local Marketing Programs” (SLMPs). This includes teams and companies involved in promoting sports and other live events. Examples: Madison Square Garden, Barclays Center, New York Mets, Yankees, Buffalo Bills, and the New York Islanders. See page 68 of this NYS Gaming Commission document for more information.
*In the data provided, no items were dated within FY 2016 (April 1, 2015 – March 31, 2016).
**Data received as of April 2023.
FIGURE 2
Overall Ad Spending by Media Placement Category
NYS Gaming Commission
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