The work used a variety of social platforms in order to engage our audience. While we used Facebook and Instagram as a means of spreading the word about this project and Twitch to live stream it to broaden our audience, the true innovation was turning Minecraft into a social platform for the brand to engage directly with its target. In this way we could more purposefully connect with this community by entering their world and allowing the brand to speak to them (quite literally through our Tax Experts) in a much more personal manner than would otherwise be possible.

H&R Block differentiates itself from its competition by offering the advice and consultation of ‘Tax Experts’ – real, live human beings educated in Canadian tax law.

But because of COVID-19, H&R Block’s offices were shut down, so our in-person expertise became inaccessible. And our target (21 – 29; the segment we most wanted to grow) was totally confused about shifting deadlines, whether CERB was taxable, whether WFH was deductible, etc.

We needed a way to draw attention to the brand as the go-to tax experts, engage our younger target audience while also answering tax payers’ questions and helping with their confusion and anxiety. And, most importantly, to keep H&R Block top of mind when it came time for them to get help with their taxes.

To let our target know H&R Block’s tax experts were still available to help them despite our stores being closed, we opened a new office in the Block-iest place possible: Minecraft.

We built an H&R Block tax office on a live Minecraft server and ‘staffed’ it with two real H&R Block tax experts who answered peoples’ burning tax questions in real time.

The whole thing was teased on our social channels, inviting our target to join the server at a certain time. Once our Minecraft office was live, players could ask an H&R Block Tax Expert anything they wanted through the chat function on the game. They received real answers the same way. The entire process was streamed live on Twitch so that non-Minecraft players could also watch the entire thing in real time.

Our target (21 – 29; the segment we most wanted to grow) was totally confused about shifting tax deadlines, whether COIVD stimulus cheques were taxable, whether WFH was deductible, etc, and had little experience handling their own taxes. Knowing that they were spending more and more time at home and online (due to COVID-19), we decided to bring our expertise to them by building a tax office in Minecraft (Minecraft has 126M players with an average users age of 24).

We promoted the opening of this new office on Facebook and Instagram Stories the day before and day of the stunt while also streaming the entire process live on Twitch.

We built an H&R Block tax office on a live Minecraft server and ‘staffed’ it with two real H&R Block tax experts (complete with custom skins) who answered peoples’ burning tax questions in real time.

The whole thing was teased on our social channels, inviting our target to join the server at a certain time. Once our Minecraft office was live, players could ask an H&R Block Tax Expert anything they wanted through the chat function on the game. They received real answers the same way. The entire process was streamed live on Twitch so that non-Minecraft players could also watch the entire thing in real time.

Brand link was high through the shared ‘block’ theme between H&R Block and Minecraft.

The program was a success according to the metrics we set. Including:

1. 2.2M impressions in 5 hours of the office being open.

2. Over 1500 shares on IG/FB.

3. 185 unique chat interactions on Minecraft

4. 80% or FB link clicks and 89% of IG clicks came from our intended target (21 – 29)

5. Generated engagement in a low-to-know interest category during a time of stress and uncertainty.

6. Differentiated H&R Block from other tax preparation services through own-able branding (i.e, blocks).