CASE STUDY

H&R Block Canada

2021 Multicultural Marketing Campaign

Market Opportunity

Immigration accounts for 71% of Canada’s population growth. Asian ethnic groups have become the majority in many cities and suburbs across Canada. In recent years, immigrants from India, China, and the Philippines are among the top 3 source countries.

Nearly 1 million newcomers (comprising new permanent residents, temporary foreign workers, and international students) arrive in Canada each year. This cohort has been a strong source of new client growth for H&R Block.

In 2021, in addition to its new Canadians acquisition strategy, H&R Block also launched an acquisition campaign among the 6 million+ Asian ethnic groups who have settled in Canada the past 10-15 years.

H&R Block's 2021 Multicultural Campaign

In this 2021 multicultural campaign STRADIGI developed 2 sets of multi-language creatives targeting the newcomer and tenured immigrant groups from the Indian sub-continent, China, the Philippines, and the Middle East.

The Results

The campaign delivered over 8.5 million impressions and accounted for approx. 4% of the company’s total new client growth.

CREATIVE:

Newcomer Campaign

THE INSIGHT: Newcomers are unfamiliar with the Canadian tax system and are stressed during tax season since they need to quickly learn about this new system. They also worry about whom to trust to share their financial information with to do their taxes.

This online video spot addresses the state of mind of this target audience with a benefit solution from H&R Block.

We crafted the tagline “Block out the worry. Un-tax your mind.” to cue in the brand name and the category while creating a unique, meaningful association that helps H&R Block own the ‘peace of mind’ benefit with this audience.

The scene involves a double shoot with an Asian and South Asian couple. The Asian video is in English, Mandarin, and Cantonese.

Play Video

Tenured Immigrant Campaign

THE INSIGHT: The more tenured ethnic immigrants are comfortable with their ‘go-to’ local accountant. Their tax filing routine is set and they don’t want to get out of their comfort zone. Nevertheless, there is always worry when they receive a letter from the CRA and the first thing that comes to mind is if their accountant made a mistake. They worry, “Is my accountant (now friend) filing my taxes correctly?”

This online video spot captures a fun game of blocks between father and child which gets disrupted by mom informing that a letter has arrived from the CRA. Dad’s fun moment turns to worry as he thinks about the implication of the CRA letter. H&R Block offers him peace of mind with its Free Second Look at past tax returns service. A now relaxed dad gets back to enjoying the game.

The campaign is built on the benefit statement: Block out the worry. Un-tax your mind.

The video involves a double shoot with an Asian and South Asian family. The Asian video is in English, Cantonese, and Mandarin.

Play Video

The digital campaign launched on February 22, 2021 on the Facebook, WeChat, and Google’s Display & Video (DV360) platforms. Specially curated content for the target audience – in Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, and English – are hosted on the MyCanadianLife multicultural engagement marketing platform.

GAME-CHANGER: Streamed Video Ads in Display Banners

This is a game-changer for Digital Advertising using adaptive streaming, which completely removes many of the limitations set by legacy ad serving technologies. These banner ads load instantly, as soon as the ad space is in-screen, which means we get more ad views for every impression.

The quality of the ad is automatically adapted to the user’s connection speed.

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