Traditional Marketing
I have to hand it to them, traditional TV campaigns have been very effective. Austaralians remember the ads and the brand message, I couldn't find the one I wanted, but below is a successful version that ran at the Superbowl in the US. Conversely however, in terms of strategy, they were prominently aired throughout July and early August and sure enough, their brand recall was huge, but the argument is that they didn't trigger young people to act.
The New Strategy
H&R block implemented a very thorough, well constructed and most relevant... cool social media campaign. Their marketing team looked at what people want to watch, how they interact and then worked the H&R Block brand and message into it.
Social media marketing is a buzz word, when implemented effectively, it communicates directly with the youth of today, but despite being new and exciting, it comes from traditional marketing blood lines (The traditionalists are nodding approvingly and stroking their long white beards). The long and short of this social media campaign is that it creates a positive relationship / association with the viewers. That's it, nothing fancy. If you watch the content of Truman Green acting like a dill and enjoy it, you will probably recall the brand and possibly use it.
I love to hammer on about campaign support & integration and this is no differnt. The support of the Truman Green character is excellent, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and YouTube allow users to connect with him in a range of ways. They can interact by attaching add-ons to their personal page, comment on the latest video and share the content with their friends (making it viral). All in all, the online strategy has really added to their marketing mix.
The argument against
Many modern marketers will tell you that positive branding is a thing of the past. I mean sure, I know the brand 'H&R Block' because their ads struck a chord with me, but would a real consumers just blindly go with them, or does the buyer decision process suggest that most of them will jump on the I-net and seek out the best deal for their money? If this is correct, then brand recall only attracts a fraction of the customers it should...
Josh Strawczynski's Opinion
Actually, as much as I like brand recall, the modern marketer is right, you are going to lose a lot of customers in the buyer decision phase. There are a plethora of options out there and many consumers will choose to exercise those options. However, to start with you had those people thinking of you in the first place, so tick box number one.
Secondly, the actual strategy of H&R block has been excellent, offering website tax advise and creating a more humanistic feel through characters like Truman green, increases trial rate, which in turn with a quality institution and service should retain many of them for the following year.
Sam Berringer's opinion
Social media is just so important to the support of todays modern business. Getting in on the ground floor like this is not only a short term win, but organizational knowledge that will help them build on this into the future.
For more on social media marketing go to the expert Julian Cole @ AdSpace pioneers
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