I like this initiative. Not just for the obvious aesthetic reasons of HR Block Island. I like the underlying promise.
H&R Block may have hold of something much more important than their Second Life build. I hope the initiative bears out to be what it seems to be. From all its hints though, H&R gets it.
Early yesterday morning I dropped by their new HR Block Island in Second Life. First, the build is truly beautiful – in design and in execution. Brought to SL for H&R Block by agency Fleishman-Hillard in partnership with The Electric Sheep Company, it is very contemporary in design (not quite futuristic) but blessedly easy to navigate 
even for a new SLer (which is a big A+ in my book). Much appreciated signage too. It is tiered and offset in a visually inviting way that encourages an avatar to explore, much like a garden path that turns out of sight and calls you to continue on. The spaces are pleasingly avatar scale and are warm and comfortable. Considering this is all about taxes, I’d say this team produced a near miracle.
What has me intrigued, though, about what I’ve seen so far with this initiative isn’t the Island. It is that at the center of the product is “The Story.” This is what has me thinking H&R gets it.
In a video promotion (available on the sim and on the web), on the Tango web site and in the Tango blog, H&R talks about bringing their Tango tax preparation software to market built around a story – that Americans overpay the IRS to the tune of $1 billion a year, and we need to get it back. They “went Hollywood” (again, read storytelling) in their approach to the tax preparation experience to create something new and to connect customer people with H&R people in the way or to the extent the customer wants. (Bad grammar aside, “I got people” is also the theme of their ad campaign.) While their Tango beta group is unavailable so I could not look at the product first hand, the concept is definitely modern media. From the Tango blog:
"But, what if we could totally reinvent the experience of doing your taxes? What if we took the kind of technology that is being used on the latest Web sites, added some attitude and a little bit of Hollywood storytelling, and blended in the flexibility of the Internet to connect people with the help and support they need? We can create something entirely different and new."
Delivering on the promise is yet to be seen, but the direction on display is right on.
On HR Block Island, there is a disco / ballroom of course to practice new-found dance skills embedded in the shoes that come in the $L100 Tango product bundle. It appears Moopf Murray lent his expertise to the fancy footwear for H&R. The bundle also provides you the opportunity to save $69.32 (at the current Linden exchange rates) by giving you a free code toward trying the $70 Tango tax preparation web experience. H&R is offering residents the opportunity to sell the Tango bundle and earn money doing it by keeping $L75 of the $L100 price.
H&R plans to have two tax professionals in world for free tax preparation assistance on Tuesdays and Thursdays until April 17th from 6-7 p.m. SLT (PDT).
Whether the SL presence will be more than a product launch tactic remains to be seen, but the fact they are looking at innovating their services through the prism of contemporary media is encouraging.
See the official press release here, the Tango blog is here, the Tango preview web site is here, promotional video is here (5 min) and HR Block Island is HR Block 113/48/37/.
March 17, 2007
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