finance&invest.brussels

H&R Block's Bold Move: Making Taxes Trendy for Gen Z

HR Block's marketing approach centers on making taxes feel less taxing and more culturally relevant, with a strong focus on Gen Z. The company leans into TikTok and integrates with gaming platforms, including Roblox and Minecraft, to reach younger audiences, and even produced a branded reality show, Responsibility Island, featuring an AI tax assistant. Leadership cites life moments as tax moments and emphasizes ‘hijacking culture’ to stay relevant outside tax season. Beyond Gen Z, HR Block targets established households through Yahoo Finance takeovers during tax season, broad TV and addressable streaming, and data-informed content on YouTube, with Amazon playing a role in full-funnel marketing. The firm also highlights legacy product extensions like Spruce and has deployed a proprietary Adobe-based marketing mix model to improve real-time attribution across the funnel.

Verizon Sell Media Unit; Digital Commerce Spend to Reach $11.6tn - ExchangeWire.com

ExchangeWire highlights three ad tech developments: Verizon will sell its media division (including AOL and Yahoo) to Apollo Global Management for USD 5 billion, with Verizon retaining a 10% stake and the unit being rebranded as Yahoo; Verizon will receive USD 4.25 billion in cash, and some portfolio brands such as TechCrunch, Yahoo Finance, and Engadget may be divested for less than earlier valuations. Juniper Research forecasts digital commerce spend to exceed USD 11.6 trillion in 2021, with mobile contributing 73% of value that year and 79% by 2025. Additionally, Zynga has agreed to acquire Chartboost for USD 250 million in cash, obtaining 100% ownership of the mobile programmatic advertising and monetisation platform.

Double Verify Snaps Up Contextual Ad Firm; Germany Quashes Facebook’s Like Button Data

AdExchanger’s Tuesday roundup covers DoubleVerify’s acquisition of the Finnish contextual ad tech startup Leiki for an undisclosed sum, marking DV’s first acquisition and following DV’s 18-month period since Providence Equity Partners took ownership. The piece notes Oracle’s deals in the ad-tech space, closing its Moat transaction and then acquiring Grapeshot, a contextual advertising company and rival to DoubleVerify. In regulatory news, German regulators plan to ban Facebook from collecting user data via third-party widgets and to prohibit data sharing between Instagram and WhatsApp, potentially limiting ad targeting and engagement data. The roundup also reports Digital First Media’s offer to acquire Gannett, whose value has fallen about 40% since 2016, with Digital First already owning 7.5% of Gannett. Separately, WordPress launched a new publishing platform backed by $2.5 million from Google and journalism groups to support local news organizations.