Turning Retail Stores into Dynamic Media Platforms

How can ideas developed in one lottery market help solve challenges in another? Answers were woven through the European Lotteries Industry Days in Marrakesh, Morocco, where the conference theme, “Bridging Continents,” emphasized the power of shared learning across the industry.

Drawing on experience operating in Italy, one of the world’s largest lottery markets, Brightstar Lottery leaders discussed how data, shopper insights, and digital signage are reshaping lottery retail. They presented consumer research and a framework that can be applied by other lotteries to transform data, insights, and technology into digital-first strategies to create more engaging player experiences.

The session was introduced by Wendy Montgomery, Brightstar Senior Vice President of Global Lottery Marketing, Sales and Product Development, who connected the conference theme to the company’s approach of sharing expertise and best practices across teams and global regions.

Illustrating the power of cross-market sharing, Brightstar Italy’s Annalisa Spanò, Senior Director, Global Market Insights, and Giuseppina Scuriatti, Vice President, Marketing, Customer Growth, and AI Adoption, presented the methods their teams use for applying research to shape digital-first marketing strategies. 

Annalisa highlighted the structured research approach used by Brightstar’s global team of market researchers to better understand evolving consumer expectations and identify opportunities to improve products, retail environments, and player experiences.

Drawing on recent research findings, she shared what matters most to consumers today. “The consumer trends we are seeing extend beyond individual countries—and even beyond the lottery industry,” she notes. These broader trends reveal a growing preference for simplicity, convenience, access to information, and worthwhile experiences.

Experience itself has become a key differentiator for brands, sometimes carrying equal or greater importance than the product being purchased.”

The trends have implications for other lottery operators. Players report they are spending less time in-store and prefer more streamlined interactions (see bar graph below). The research also revealed consumers’ increasing use of digital tools throughout their shopping journey and a continued preference for retail environments that offer clear, structured information. 

Importantly, the growing cohort of omnichannel consumers often has higher engagement levels and brings elevated expectations around personalization, efficiency, and innovation.

For lotteries, meeting these expectations requires an integrated approach to player experience design.

Mapping Digital Innovation

Giuseppina Scuriatti described how her team has used the insights to evolve lottery retail in the Italian market from a transactional environment into an experiential one - a space where consumers receive more personalized, informative, and interactive experiences, supported by digital touchpoints and well-equipped retailers. 

To demonstrate how other lotteries can translate these insights into practical strategies, Giuseppina presented the digital innovation map developed for the Italian market, where Brightstar has a 92% share of the lottery sector and a network of more than 54,000 points of sale. 
 

The map (see graphic at the top of this article) details the elements of a fully experiential retail location. This comprehensive ecosystem of in-store touchpoints is designed to work together and be adaptable across different retail formats to enable more flexible, connected, and personalized customer journeys. “While not all retail locations will include every touchpoint,” she noted, “the touchpoints can be combined in different ways to create hundreds of different customer journeys.” 

Among the solutions that support retail evolution, digital signage has emerged as a particularly strong example of how technology can enhance player communication and engagement. “Digital signage is a communication system that allows you to deliver content to the retail network in real time,” Giuseppina noted. “While content is managed centrally, the delivery can be tailored to the store level, making communication more relevant and effective.”

Brightstar Italy now has more than 10,000 stores in the country connected by such a system, with digital signage in different sizes, formats, and combinations of screens working together. The introduction of digital signage has played an important role in supporting the strong performance of instant lottery sales in Italy and has been a valuable enabler of the successful launch of new products across the retail network.

The lesson, however, is not simply to deploy more screens. Giuseppina cited three factors that are critical for success when deploying digital signage: 

• Effective content with clear, relevant and engaging messaging;
• Strong orchestration of the digital signage network to address various local market needs; 
• Tailored communications to ensure the communications remain meaningful across different channels, store formats, and player segments. 

Giuseppina emphasized that digital signage has the power to transform the point of sale into a dynamic and engaging communication space.  Brightstar’s new SignaLink™ solution makes this possible while also creating a more modern and consistent player experience across the retail network. 

''What SignaLink gives lotteries is a digital advertising platform. Content can be managed centrally and applied across the network in real time,” she explains. Designed for flexibility, the solution can be configured as a digital advertising display, an instant ticket menu board, or both.  “It’s not only a new way to display and experience tickets in-store,” she notes, “it also makes the player experience more informative and engaging.”

A transferrable idea that Giuseppina shared with attendees was the SCALE framework, a model to scale digital signage across lottery retail networks and achieve a more advanced level of communication:

• SENSE: Understand shopper behavior to deliver the right content
• CENTRALIZE: Manage content centrally to ensure consistent, agile, and efficient communication across multiple retail points
• ACTIVATE: Use compelling, high-impact content to promote products, winnings, digital adoption, and responsible gaming
• LOCALIZE: Customize content to geographic areas, store formats, and product assortments for enhanced effectiveness
• EVALUATE: Monitor performance and optimize playlists iteratively to improve digital signage impact over time

For attendees, the actionable ideas presented in the session can help shape the use of consumer insights to design player experiences that are more informative, engaging, personalized, and responsible.