Minnesota Lottery Pays Cheeky Homage to JAWS for New Scratch Game

Rodeo Show and director Esteban 'Steve' Petersen recently produced a :30 TV spot as part of the Minnesota Lottery’s summer 'JAWS'-themed scratch game campaign via agency Betty. The campaign is running regionally across OOH, radio, and broadcast, with several other OOH activations this summer across Minnesota.

According to Betty, because the campaign leverages iconic imagery from the legendary 1975 movie JAWS, it was important to convey to the audience that the campaign is for the new scratch game, not for the movie. As such, Betty made use of imagery and settings that are uniquely Minnesotan while keeping the Minnesota Lottery branding prominent throughout.

Esteban took Betty’s messaging strategy to heart in directing the :30 TV spot, dishing up a delightful celebration of the thriller genre and the idea of sharks in the Minnesota lakes. The spot opens with beachgoers enjoying a summer day, complete with the familiar JAWS theme music to hint that it’s time to run... to the convenience store to buy a new JAWS scratch game.

“We designed the shots and plotted the story more as a tongue-in-cheek homage to Spielberg and JAWS, rather than a frame-by-frame copy or parody,” remarks Esteban. “We kept the emphasis on playing into the tropes of thriller movies to sell the comedic twist at the end while taking every opportunity to make it feel very Minnesotan, where our beach is on a lake.”

According to Esteban, VFX played an integral role in bringing the concept to life, which hinged on an opening scene of a jam-packed beach. Using crowd duplication effects, he transformed a handful of extras into hundreds of beachgoers.

Shooting a summertime spot in the dead of winter in Minnesota was also no small feat. A massive blizzard and iced-over lakes derailed the initial shoot date; but once back on location, Esteban and the Rodeo Show crew made what was a chilly day look like it needed SPF 50. Their 'winter-for-summer' production toolbox included paramedics on standby for the actors in bathing suits, an art department armed with ice shovels, and lighting rigs that pushed hard sun through a grey sky. Post-production kept things summery with colour correction and sky replacements.

“Working with Betty on the JAWS commercial was a ‘fin-tastic’ experience,” says Esteban. “Especially with all of the challenges we had to work through in transforming our chilly Minnesota winter shoot into a hot summer day at the beach. Scott Dahl and Nicole Meyer were ‘jawsome’ partners to have on this adventure. Who knew shooting a JAWS-themed beach spot on a cold winter day could be such a whale of a time?”

“Helming a JAWS-inspired production of this magnitude required an all-hands-on-deck crew," concludes Rodeo Show executive producer Katie Walker. “The creative harmony between Steve, Betty, and our production team was a thing of beauty, as everyone was rowing in the same direction to ensure the spot felt big and cinematic to sell the gag.”