ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, March 13, 1997 TAG: 9703130055
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DAN CASEY THE ROANOKE TIMES
Officials said the goal was to communicate that the "Big Game" is a Virginia property - something to benefit the state
City Council had no say in the latest "enhancement" of Roanoke's revered Mill Mountain.
Neither did the Mill Mountain Development Committee.
A mountain activist has dubbed it "stupid" and an affront.
In fact, it doesn't even exist, except in the mind of a state lottery marketing whiz.
But you sure can see it on TV - bright as day, even bigger than the famous Mill Mountain Star: an enormous lighted sign that looks like it was hijacked from the Las Vegas strip.
"$34 MILLION" screams a huge light bank that stands next to the star in the State Lottery Department's latest television ad promoting the multistate "Big Game."
"I haven't seen that one," said Carl Kopitzke, chairman of the Mill Mountain Development Committee, which advises City Council on initiatives for Roanoke's largest park. "I'll certainly look for it. I can envision what that would do to a lot of people in the valley."
The ads, produced with a healthy dose of video fakery, are running in the Roanoke television market. The State Lottery Department calls them "jackpot awareness spots." They're used to sell tickets for the agency's "Big Game."
The traditional lotto-style game crosses state boundaries into Georgia, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts and Michigan. Drawings are held every Friday night.
The jackpots are huge, but the odds of winning are exceedingly slim: 1 in 53 million. You have a better chance of getting struck by lightning on a sunny day, or plucking an oyster out of Smith Mountain Lake.
Last summer, as the agency was preparing to launch the Big Game, lottery videographer and marketing specialist Mark Hoerath hit upon the idea of regionalizing the television ads and injecting them with local flavor.
Charlottesville residents were treated to a view of Shockoe Slip, one of Richmond's historic districts. Tidewater residents saw a tugboat on the Chesapeake Bay, hauling a Big Game sign. Ads running in Richmond featured that city's skyline. The spot running in Harrisonburg shows a view from the Blue Ridge Parkway.
Later, the jackpot numbers were added to the promotional ads in a Richmond video studio. The numbers range from $5million to $99million. The ads run when the jackpots get that big.
"The real objective, the real goal, is to communicate that the Big Game is a Virginia property - something to benefit Virginia," Hoerath said Tuesday. "My goal was to pick Virginia icons - things that were very identifiable."
The agency recognized that some landmarks are so sacred it didn't dare use them. Civil War battlefields fell under that category, Hoerath said. So did Thomas Jefferson's home at Monticello and George Washington's Mount Vernon.
But Mill Mountain survived the cut - to the chagrin of some mountain partisans.
"I think it's stupid," said Betty Field, a South Roanoker who has run, walked and hiked more than 26,000 miles on the mountain in the past 15 years, and who has argued for leaving it in as natural a state as possible. "I just don't think it's right. This is something that's taking people's money."
Unfortunately, Kopitzke says, "I'm sure it's all legal. I don't think they would use that without legal ground to stand on."
City Councilman Jim Trout, council's representative on the Mill Mountain Development Committee, shrugged it off.
"Any time you get publicity and you don't get criticized, you can take it with a laugh," Trout said.
Kopitzke hasn't heard any complaints about the ads. Neither has the lottery agency, spokeswoman Paula Otto said.
Instead, "We've gotten many good comments from Virginians that we were showing off Virginia landmarks and scenic areas," Otto said.
LENGTH: Medium: 78 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: Mill Mountain is one of several famous Virginia sitesby CNBthat lottery officials chose to highlight to give their ads local
flavor. color.