Fallon

H&R Block’s Not-So-Ordinary Giveaway Gimmick

Nader Ashway1 Comment

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If you’re a working American, you know it’s tax season. And for the first quarter of the year, the airwaves are awash in tax preparation advertising. Leading the charge is H&R Block, continuing its “get your billions back, America!” themeline, developed by their lead agency Fallon.

This year, they’re executing a major promotion, which started about a week ago. They’re giving away $1,000 per day to a thousand people who walk in to an H&R Block office over the course of 32 days. I’m not great at math, but that’s $32,000,000 in cash being given away by February 15th.

One of their spots is a fun, hip-hop themed, music-video-styled approach called “1,000 Washingtons.”

And they can afford it. The company earned approximately $2.3 billion in tax preparation revenue last year. They’re spending about 5% of revenue (which is right on target,) or roughly $100 million in US measured media in addition to the $32 million in given-away dollars.

This is a gimmick, pure and simple. And normally, that would be seen as a four-letter word on this blog, and among most practitioners. To be clear, a gimmick shifts the focus away from the consumer and on to the brand. When a brand runs a campaign and says “hey look at us! Look at what WE’RE doing! Look how cool WE are,” it’s generally considered cheesy, to use a technical term.

Under the surface, the brand is trying to induce early filing (on or before February 15th.)  It’s good for the company’s earnings, and doesn’t, um, tax the Block filers with a crush of returns in the last 60 days of the filing period.  So you can see how the gimmick is a convention set in place to serve the needs of the brand, not necessarily to serve the needs of the consumer.

However, this is a REALLY SMART gimmick, because, while the promotion is about what the BRAND is doing, the focus is squarely on the consumer, and what he or she might get if they use Block to file this year. So Block wins twice: they win on differentiating the brand from other tax prep companies, (nobody else is giving away this kind of coin,) and they win because the consumer is thinking ONE thing and one thing only: “I may get money if I file with Block.”

Did you hear that? The consumer is thinking “I may get money…” If you’re in the tax prep business, and you’re trying to lure consumers into a brick and mortar store to file their taxes early (which is done by only about slightly less than half of all filing Americans,) there is simply only ONE thing you want them to think: I may get money.  Forget the fact that the promotion will only award 32,000 in-store H&R Block filers out there:  a ratio of about 2 out of every thousand people.  Better odds than the lottery, but not a lock by any stretch of the imagination.

Marketing, and specifically, the promotion pillar of marketing, is mostly about managing perceptions of consumers. We can’t control what consumers do, or how they behave, or where they shop. But how they perceive the offerings, claims and other messages of influence is totally fair game, and why agencies who develop those messages are so critical to the success of brands.

In the big picture, then, Block is winning as a marketer by centering their advertising around a promotion that is focused on the simple meme “I may get money.” In the tax prep business, that’s what you want your consumer to think. (Even though millions of Americans will end up owing the government money.)

Add to this that the core theme of Block’s advertising (for the past two years) is “get your billions back America,” and you see how seamlessly this fits in with their overall messaging strategy. That’s a cohesive messaging plan at work. Nicely done, H&R Block.

Creative or Re-creative?

Nader Ashway3 Comments

“Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.” So the saying goes. But when that imitation becomes a direct lift of concept and content, is it flattery or is it something else? This question is begat with a new ad for an organization called GrassIsNotGreener.Com, who recently ran a full page ad in The New York Times to caution against widespread legalization of marijuana, and protest recent supportive editorials.

The ad uses a headline comprised of the two words “Perception” and “Reality.” [If it sounds familiar, you’re probably over 40 years old and in the marketing business. More on that in a moment.]

Cleverly art directed, the “perception” typography sits adjacent to an inset head shot of a semi-cute 20-something long-haired bandana-wearing stoner dude with a 2-day scruff (just long enough to denote slacker, but too short to pass for intended hipster stubble.)

The “reality” typography sits two inches below, and we see that the main image of the ad is that of a power-suit sporting corporate executive at the head of a board room table. The obligatory wristwatch, broad single Windsor, a rocks tumbler filled with spring water, and the latest quarterly earnings report comprise the modest styling of the shot.SAM_ad_full_page_NYT_11.55x21_31Jul14_FINAL-1

The copy is strong, and gets to its points quickly and clearly. Not a word wasted, and they took a firm shot at The New York Times along the way. They’re also borrowing a lot of negative equity from the tobacco industry, which is also hinted at in the copy.

All in all, this is a very good ad. It says, “hey…you think this one thing, but there’s another really important thing going on that you may not be aware of…so we’re here to make you more aware.”

Here’s the problem: it’s using a creative concept that’s been done before. And when I say “using,” I mean, damn-near-exactly DUPLICATING a creative approach that was done some 30 years ago. What further complicates this issue is that it wasn’t some obscure little creative execution that no one saw…this was a campaign (props to Fallon McElligott as they were known at the time,) that appeared in Advertising Age, among other publications, ran for a decade, won every major award known to man and other species, and was wildly successful for its client, Rolling Stone. (To add further props, it was a b-to-b campaign, a category in which people are still arguing “you can’t be super creative.” Right.)

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[In case you’re interested, GrassIsNotGreener.com is supported by a group called ProjectSAM, [which stands for “smart approaches to marijuana,”] founded by former government officials and comprised of several medical, legal and volunteer organizations.]

But wait…there’s more. It’s not just that this ad directly lifts this concept. Boyd Communications, based in Shrieveport, LA, used the same (exact) concept for their client CryoLife to demonstrate that most people’s perceptions about age and cardiac valve transplants are wrong. Does it work to crystallize the point? Yes, extremely well. And while there’s nothing new under the sun in advertising, they could have used that helpful, “hey there’s more to know about this subject” approach without using the same exact words, no?

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And it’s not like this hasn’t happened before over the last 100 years or so – it has, countless times. Big popular executions and little-known local work gets riffed on and ripped off all the time. Sometimes it’s intentional, and sometimes, strong ideas simply resemble each other.

Advertising – especially creative strategy and execution – is about finding an effective “way in” to consumer perceptions. So when that way in has been paved on the efforts and talents of someone else, is that cool? I’m not sure. But when you use the exact same words, for the exact same ends, that is to say, when your creative is actually re-creative, we may have to start asking the question “what’s the compensation package for credit?”