Maybe It’s Fly Fishing, Maybe It’s Not: Imagining Your True Calling with Washington’s Lottery
By Kathi Patnode, Assistant Director of Marketing, Washington’s Lottery, and Ebenezer Tan, Senior Strategist, VML
Published October 20, 2026
In 2011, Washington’s Lottery discovered its real challenge wasn’t how people felt about the brand. It’s that most people felt nothing at all. Research showed 70% of Washingtonians were simply indifferent to the Lottery. In one of the most tradition-bound lottery markets in the country, the opportunity was clear: Give people a reason to feel something.
The answer was not another jackpot promotion, but a question: What if there really was a Department of Imagination?
Fifteen years later, the Department of Imagination remains the creative engine of Washington’s Lottery – a brand platform built on a simple truth: win or lose, it’s fun to imagine, and a ticket is permission to ask, “what would I do if I won?” Along the way, annual sales have nearly doubled to over $1 billion, and the Department of Imagination has helped develop a younger player base, even as other American lotteries have seen their players trend older.
For a brand platform that’s been providing its audience with the opportunity to imagine for fifteen years, it faces the same question every year: How do you keep it fresh without losing what made it work? For this year’s campaign, developed with our agency partners at VML, the mission was twofold:
Evolve the Department of Imagination into new creative territory while maintaining the brand’s hard-earned association with imagination – pushing the story forward rather than repeating it.
Deepen engagement with the next generation of players (adults 25–34), inspiring them to reclaim their imagination and believe in the benefits of imagining – win or lose.
Insight and Big Idea
The Department of Imagination has always run on the same fuel: Imagining a win is entertainment in itself. What’s changed is the world around it. Today’s younger adults prize creativity as part of who they are. Yet, between time, money, and the temptation to let AI do the imagining for them, they experience that creativity less than ever.
That made our role even clearer. Imagining what you would do with a win is one of the few creative acts left with no constraints attached – no budget, no deadline, no tool doing the act for you.
Imagine What You Could Create became our strategic unlock, and it led to this year’s campaign idea: Imagine Your True Calling. Because the true magic of winning isn’t the number in your bank account but the freedom to find out who you really are. And with your newfound winnings, it allows for the opportunity to explore all those ideas you’ve been imagining you’d be great at – and if you decide it’s not for you, you can try what’s next.
Challenges
Continuing to evolve a fifteen-year brand platform came with inherent challenges. The campaign had to feel genuinely new while remaining distinctly Department of Imagination. The tone had to celebrate imagination, which meant leading with comedy rather than sentiment. And the campaign had to stay present in a busy year of product campaigns, which is why we designed it to pulse throughout the year, keeping the brand relevant in the mix rather than spending it all in one burst.
“Very few brand platforms make it to year fifteen still feeling fresh,” says Kathi Patnode, Assistant Director of Marketing at Washington's Lottery. “That’s a credit to our partners at VML. Every year, they find a way to take the Department of Imagination somewhere new without losing what makes it ours.”
Execution
1. The Spots
At the heart of the campaign is a series of comedic vignettes following recent lottery winners as they test-drive possible callings such as fly fishing, truffle hunting, and breakdancing – each ending in charming failure. Each story was produced in :30, :15, and :06 versions, built for everything from primetime to the vertical scroll.
2. A Full-Funnel Framework
The campaign moves our audience through three key phases: Sparking imagination by showing what a win makes possible, motivating play by turning that feeling into intent, and creating connection by getting people talking about what their true calling might be with boundless time and money.
3. Meeting Washington Where It Waits
Media was strategically chosen to interrupt autopilot moments with a spark of “what if.” That included a Washington State Ferries takeover across Puget Sound’s busiest routes, timed to peak summer ridership and World Cup travel, plus broadcast anchored in primetime and sports with a Mariners TV seventh inning-stretch partnership, extended through connected TV, digital video, and social.
4. Still To Come
Next, the idea steps out of the scripts and into real life: an episodic True Calling social series. In each episode, a creator tries a brand-new calling, imagining what they’d do if they won, then living it out on camera, from rodeo clowning and beekeeping to glassblowing, aerial trapeze, and chainsaw woodcarving. Because it turns out “maybe it’s this, maybe it’s not” is even funnier when nobody wrote the ending.
And in partnership with BuzzFeed, a branded interactive quiz will invite our audience to answer a series of questions about their personality and goals to explore their true calling – and what a win could look like.
Proof Behind the Play
Imagine Your True Calling is in market right now, but the platform behind it has fifteen years of results. Since the Department of Imagination launched in 2011, Washington’s Lottery has grown annual sales to over $1 billion (averaging 5.4% growth per year), its player base has grown younger, and the Washingtonians who once felt indifferent now hold a majority-positive opinion of the Lottery. And among those who see the Lottery’s advertising, imagination is now the most-recalled message of all – at 65%, up from 57% just a year ago.
A Platform That Keeps Finding Its Calling
And that's what keeps this fun. Every year, the Department of Imagination gets to find a brand-new answer to the same wonderful question: What would you do if you won?
This year, that answer is an invitation. Try the thing. It might work – and it’s okay if it doesn’t. Try the next. For the Department of Imagination, our belief is that the win was never really the point, but the imagining is. Somewhere between a runaway truffle dog and a robotic breakdancing suit, Washingtonians are reminded of what Washington’s Lottery has been saying from the beginning: Life's more fun when you imagine!
