Since 2003, the Health & Wealth Raffle has not only become one of the largest fundraisers for St. Joseph's Hospital and Barrow Neurological Institute, but an integral part of the Arizona landscape. But the first time we talked with the team from the Health & Wealth Raffle, they had just come off of their launch raffle with disappointing results.

The original ad agency had failed to sell out the pre-set number of tickets and two small PR controversies weren't being addressed properly, the most interesting was one person winning a multitude of prizes even though, mathematically she had won directly in proportion to the number of tickets she had purchased. At that point, the original ad agency handling the account was terminated and the Health & Wealth Raffle was awarded to E.B. Lane. after an amazing meeting during which Peter Juergens charted out (in detail) the buying process and problems that needed to be addressed by advertising/marketing. As the Executive Creative Director at EBL, I was charged with finding "the" creative approach to remedy the negativity the raffle was receiving as well as find a creative solution to sell-out the set number of 100,000 tickets at $100 each.

To accomplish this, I interviewed each of the big winners. As I did, it became very apparent that each had some family tie back to St Joe's and the Barrow where family members had been saved by the exceptional staff and leading-edge approaches these hospitals were perfecting. It was these stories that became the basis for the following print ads for the next two consecutive raffles — "Real people, who really won, and felt that even if they hadn't, their participation and support of the raffle would help save or touch someone else's life as St. Joe's and the Barrow had touched theirs."

The first six are from the "Spring 2004″ campaign, the first sell out for the Health and Wealth Raffle.

Having overcome some of the problems from the very first raffle, and showing with incredible results that this direction was exactly the perfect balance of "retail and branding", I created a second group of ads for the Fall 2004 Raffle. This raffle increased its total number of tickets by 50%.

While I loved the richness of the darker backdrops for my photo shoots and the sophisticated type, some people within the raffle found them to be too dark and hard to read. So these lighter ads with less sophisticated font usage were introduced and are actually part of a direct-mail approach we added to the second Health & Wealth Raffle we handled.

It's funny how everyone becomes an expert when things are going really, really well. Somewhere along the way someone decided that while the raffles had been selling out, the colors still seemed bland and the type was still to sophisticated and the brochures needed to have more "seasonal color" because the raffle was now being held twice a year — in the Spring and Fall. These were some of my sketches to work out "the need for brighter colors" and bolder fonts. Okay, I tried to sneak "Curlz" font in, but...

So once I developed the above brochure to show how and where everything would layout, it was determined that maybe the banner/mast head really was to busy, and while this was the "Fall 2005″ promotion the colors really weren't there yet, "And seriously, please get rid of that hard to read type..." — So I developed this alternate approach.

In the end, the raffle went with the banner concept I'd created but used my original color recommendations, ditching the leaves for fall. I left EB Lane just after everything from the 30 versions of TV spots, the dozen radio scripts, outdoor concepts, and website had been put into production. The raffle never had four consecutive sell outs again — although they have gone on to raise $47+ million dollars for St. Joseph's Hospital and Barrow Neurological Institute since 2003, becoming the most successful raffle in the country.

As a designer, I know my original work nailed what the Health & Wealth Raffle needed to look like to build its brand image in Arizona and it was that vision that helped take the raffle to the only four consecutive sell outs they have had in their history!