H&R Block’s new advertising campaign, with the actor Jon Hamm, “has a more aggressive pitch: ‘Get your taxes won,’” according to The New York Times. “It was influenced by criticism from Donald J. Trump that he would put the company out of business with his plan for a simplified tax code.”
With a new president in the White House, some companies are adding another item to their public relations and marketing to-do list: pre-emptive damage control.
In the run-up to his inauguration, President Trump showed “no signs of curbing his willingness to criticize brands that draw his ire,” including Boeing, Vanity Fair and Lockheed Martin, among others, according to The New York Times.
“The spontaneity of his denunciations — and the speed at which his words travel, particularly on Twitter — is prompting some brands to pre-emptively draft informal contingency plans, and others, like H&R Block, to spend money shoring up their reputation.” (During the campaign, then-candidate Trump promised to put H&R Block out of business by streamlining the tax code.)
“These are very much uncharted waters for companies,” Tim Calkins, professor of marketing at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management, said. “Rarely have we been quite so polarized, and rarely have we had a president who is so quick to call out an attack on perceived threats.”
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