Jill Cress will be speaking at the Brand Innovators Marketing Leadership Summit at Cannes next week. Her session will take place on the Brand Innovators Beach Stage Wednesday at 12:45pm. We caught up with her before we head to the Crosiette to discuss some of the big issues facing the advertising business today.
How are you thinking about AI going into Cannes?
AI has the potential to unleash speed and scale for several industries, including tax. At H&R Block, we believe the best digital capabilities are blended with human expertise and care. So, when it comes to AI, we are using it to empower our teams to deliver even better customer-centric services and provide even more care. We are using AI to scan past tax returns for additional refunds others missed, and AI is scaling humanized and personalized help within our products. This is just the beginning. From a marketing perspective, we know that smart, consumer-led marketers that embrace AI will be more effective. It is another powerful tool in our toolkit. It can help us work quicker and smarter from personalizing content based on a customer’s behavior to summarizing data from multiple sources, as well as using AI as a first step to start generating content. It’s also important that AI applications are developed in a secure and safe environment so we can be confident the AI solutions we deploy are done so reliably and responsibly.
How are you thinking about marketing to Gen Z?
This past tax season H&R Block got the entire country excited about doing their taxes with the “It’s Tax Season!” campaign. Transforming this stressful time of the year into one of celebration also included targeting Gen Z. Many are first-time tax filers, and as more and more enter the workforce, we want to make sure H&R Block is their top choice for tax help. As we market to them, we engage with them on the platforms they use, primarily TikTok. And we understand that Gen Z favors companies that demonstrate a strong purpose. We saw Gen Z resonate with our “A Fair Shot” campaign, which is working to bring pay equity to Name Image and Likeness deals for female college athletes and help all student athletes with their taxes. We are experiencing great brand momentum with this audience – two-thirds of Gen Z said H&R Block would be their first choice for tax prep because of “A Fair Shot,” our “It’s Tax Season” campaign increased brand awareness among Gen Z, and Gen Z represented our largest segment of new client growth for our DIY Online services.
How is the economy impacting your marketing strategy for the rest of the year?
H&R Block’s purpose is to provide help and inspire confidence in our clients and communities everywhere. We’re helping millions of Americans be better with money and given the current economy, people need to get the most from their tax refund and make their money work harder than ever. For the rest of the year, we’ll be marketing to Californians whose federal tax filing deadline was extended to October 16, due to several natural disasters. We’ll also make sure people know we have solutions like Emerald Advance, a year-round line of credit, and Refund Advance, a no-interest loan repaid with a tax refund, which both help get money to cash-constrained Americans.
How are you thinking about sustainability this year?
As a service provider with leased retail office space, our sustainability efforts focus on a couple of key areas – technology recycling and paper consumption. Soon we’ll be announcing publicly our paper reduction efforts and goals. Also, every year we work to keep IT waste out of landfills. Through IT equipment recycling efforts, each year we send more than 13,000 pieces of hardware to nonprofits in 33 states.
