Canada Campaign Imminent: H&R Block expands new AOR contract to Canada (Score 65)

Sales Lead: To fuel its upcoming growth and transformation strategy, H&R Block selected Ogilvy Canada as the creative and brand AOR for its Canada business.

• The agency will develop innovative creative ideas and initiatives in order to elevate the company's offering and establish it even more as the consumer's first choice for tax preparation.
• This move expands the company's relationship with Ogilvy, which became the creative and PR AOR for H&R Block's US business in September 2022.
  • We predicted that additional roster shifts would follow this one.
• The company will likely:
  • Ramp up spend in Q4-Q1 ahead of tax season
  • Return to higher spend
  • Launch a new campaign
  • Shift strategy
  • Seek additional new agency partners
• Target demographic: 
  • A wide but male-skewed target demographic ranging from Gen-Z through Gen-X

Recent leadership shifts:

• This announcement closely follows H&R Block's December 2022 hire of Canada region digital marketing manager Curtis Jenkins.

Additional spending insights:

• Broadcast insights (TV ad creative spend, effectiveness, impressions, and performance)
  • YTD spend: We do not have access to Canada-specific national TV spend information for H&R Block, but it has overall spent approximately $37.9m on this channel YTD.
    • H&R Block had spent 41% more, approximately $53.6m, by this point last year.
  • Last year: The company did not utilize this channel after this point last year, meaning that it spent around $53.6m in 2022, down 13% from when it spent around $61.6m in 2021.
  • 2023 ad programming: H&R Block's 2023 commercials have targeted male sports enthusiasts watching shows such as NFL Football, NBA Basketball, SportsCenter, College Basketball, and The Big Bang Theory.
• Digital and social insights (digital ad spend, effectiveness, impressions, and performance)
  • YTD spend: So far this year, the company's Canadian business has allocated roughly $716.8k toward digital ads, less than half of the roughly $1.9m allocated within the same 2022 timeframe.
  • YTD data: H&R Block Canada has earned around 304.5m digital impressions YTD in the Canada region via Facebook (37%), desktop video/YouTube (36%), desktop display (26%), and mobile display (1%) ads.
    • ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​The brand has placed most (95%) of this year's desktop display ads site direct onto reddit.com.
  • Last year: H&R Block Canada's estimated full-year 2022 spend of $2.1m reached 16% less than that of $2.5m in 2021.
• Additional channel insights  
  • H&R Block Canada utilizes Google Ads.

Additional agency insights:

• Opportunity: Additional roster shifts may follow this one, so get in touch soon, if you haven't yet done so, to offer PR, media, digital analytics, experiential, influencer, and/or multicultural services.
  • ​​​​​​​An advantage may go to those able to offer support in the Canada region.
• Current agency roster:
  • ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​Ogilvy Canada: Canada region creative and brand AOR (June 2023)
  • Ogilvy: US region creative and PR AOR (September 2022)
  • GALE: US media and digital - data, analytics, and CRM - AOR (retained September 2022)

Insight Sources: Broadcast insights estimated by iSpot; digital spend insights estimated by Pathmatics; additional channel insights estimated by Vivvix.

Note: H&R Block Canada is obviously headquartered in Canada, so you might want to familiarize yourself with its Anti-Spam Law (CASL) before reaching out.