The company recorded a full two-minute-long ad, though only the 45-second cut will air during the Super Bowl on Feb. 8. TurboTax will also air two shorter 15- and 30-second spots during pregame programming. These shorter versions will also serve as teasers for the full video.
This year, NBCUniversal priced 30-second ad slots at around $8 million, as ADWEEK previously reported. When asked, Kelley declined to provide TurboTax’s total investment for Super Bowl LX.
To further extend the campaign’s reach, TurboTax will share assets on social media and place wild postings in the New York and Los Angeles markets.
Brody is also doing a series of press interviews to promote the campaign, positioning it as his latest role.
To gauge the overall success of the campaign, TurboTax will be looking to drive greater awareness and consideration for the brand, particularly among previous users. The other key metric will be return on investment—a measure Kelley is confident about. “Our strategy around media buying, at least at top-of-funnel, has been focused on leaned-in experiences,” he said. “The cornerstone for that can be live sports. The most leaned-in, the most engaged viewing event of the year, is often the Super Bowl.”
Kelley is also hoping the effort will help attract consumers to the brand’s storefronts—a priority for TurboTax as it opens more brick-and-mortar locations across the country. Earlier this month, it unveiled a shiny flagship location in lower Manhattan. It’s part of a broader goal of establishing more in-person tax filing opportunities that will help TurboTax compete with players like H&R Block. Part of the Super Bowl LX spot was even filmed inside a TurboTax store.
“Many consumers have and continue to do taxes in a way that’s opaque, or slow, or is antiquated in terms of how it’s accomplished, and they settle for that,” Kelley said. TurboTax’s combination of in-person experts and artificial intelligence tools “is what we’re trying to put out with the total campaign,” he said.
