The Wall Street Journal
By Nathalie Tadena
When it comes to advertising for tax preparation companies, TurboTax, the nation’s largest online tax software company, went big this year with a splashy Super Bowl ad buy.
But the content of the ad didn’t even break the top five in the category in terms of creative effectiveness, according to data from research firm Ace Metrix. The study looked at the 25 tax ads released so far this year, with tax season now well underway.
So far, H&R Block and TaxAct spots have scored the highest among consumers for creative effectiveness, Ace Metrix said. The firm uses a sample of more than 500 people that is representative of the U.S. TV viewing audience to score national ads for traits such as persuasion, likeability and information.
H&R Block’s “Nine Nine Tee Nine” commercial is the tax category’s highest-scoring ad for creative effectiveness, Ace Metrix found. In the humorous spot, a man tells his coworkers that he filed his taxes online for just $9.99, putting extra emphasis on pronouncing the “tee” in “ninety-nine.” According to Ace Metrix, 20% of consumers said the best thing about the ad was the $9.99 deal it promoted while 17% of consumers said they loved the ad’s characters.
Meanwhile, Ace Metrix’s poll of consumers ranked TaxAct’s “Eye Out for Value” as the second most effective tax ad. TaxAct has the highest average creative effectiveness score so far this season among tax preparation companies, according to Ace Metrix. Consumers found TaxAct’s ads to be especially relevant and informational, the research firm said.
Just outside of Ace Metrix’s top five tax ads of the season, TurboTax’s “Tea Party” ad is the Intuit-owned brand’s top-scoring ad for creative effectiveness and the category’s sixth most effective ad so far this year. The spot from TurboTax aired during the Super Bowl and depicts a twist on the Boston Tea Party, in which the British redcoats seek to appease angry American patriots with a free tax filing.
TurboTax products were used to prepare 29 million tax returns last year, while H&R Block and TaxAct each handled about seven million self-prepared returns. According to data from Millward Brown Digital, H&R Block had more unique visitors to the company’s site than TaxAct and TurboTax for most months in 2014, except for the month of April when TurboTax had the highest number.
Here are the five tax ads that scored the highest for creative effectiveness, according to Ace Metrix:
1. H&R Block’s “Nine Nine Tee Nine”
2. TaxAct’s “Eye Out for Value”
3. TaxAct’s “Best Value”
4. TaxAct’s “Can Do Attitude”
5. H&R Block’s “Refund Season”
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