H&R Block Tackles Super Bowl

http://brandweek.com/brandweek/headlines/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=2046123

Kansas City, Mo. –H&R Block will return to the Super Bowl for the third straight year with a pitch for is H&R Block Advantage service.

The financial services firm will run a 30-second spot in the game’s first quarter and has also agreed to a pre-game sponsorship package. The company declined to give information about the creative of the spot or the financial terms of the buy. Campbell Mithun, Minneapolis, handles H&R’s account.

Last year, the company ran a Super Bowl spot featuring Willie Nelson. The spot played on the country music icon’s well-publicized tax troubles with a fake commercial-within-a-commercial featuring the bearded Nelson hawking a shaving cream. The previous year, H&R tapped the Coen Brothers for a gloomy spot set to the Beatles’ Tax Man.

— Todd Wasserman