How the reality TV genre is helping brands like H&R Block connect with Gen Z

A hot new bombshell has entered the (marketing) villa. There’s a growing trend of brands parodying the reality dating show genre to grab the attention of Gen Z. H&R Block is the latest—and perhaps most unexpected—in a wave of brands creating reality dating parodies. The tax prep company dropped a trailer earlier this month for its upcoming four-episode miniseries “Responsibility Island.” It joins Duolingo, Neutrogena and NYX Professional Makeup, brands that have capitalized on Gen Z’s love of contemporary dating shows such as “Too Hot to Handle,” “Love Is Blind” and “Love Island” by creating their own spoofs on the genre over the last year. H&R Block’s spoof pulls from common tropes across this new class of reality dating shows, including being set in a luxurious mansion in a tropical locale and having a cast of young, conventionally attractive singles clad in revealing outfits. H&R Block’s trailer quickly subverts those expectations for shows in the genre, though, revealing the contestants aren’t going to be looking for love on “Lit Island,” as they had initially been told, but instead completing a series of “adult” tasks, such as doing their own laundry, on “Responsibility Island.” And the series will culminate in one of adulthood’s most intimidating undertakings: filing taxes. “The idea was to take this topic that people kind of loathe and make it relatable, funny, self-deprecating and culturally relevant,” said Jill Cress, chief marketing and experience officer at H&R Block. “And we know that [Gen Z] loves content like, ‘Love Island’ and ‘Love Is Blind,’ and they’re even going back and binging content like ‘Survivor’ or ‘Keeping up with the Kardashians.’” Cress and her team are focusing their marketing efforts on engaging with Gen Z for this year’s tax season, as capturing new consumers filing their taxes for the first time is one of the only ways for H&R Block to grow its consumer base, she said. The brand landed on a reality dating show parody as the core of its campaign after discovering “narrative-led content” and “character-led work” was performing well across H&R Block’s social channels, Cress said. A twist on the reality dating genre was just one of 10 narrative-oriented campaign concepts that H&R Block came up with when determining how to reach Gen Z, but the brand landed on “Responsibility Island” after deciding it would resonate most with that age demographic, Cress said. Also read: A marketing guide to Gen Z Roughly three out of four 18- to 24-year-olds told consumer analytics platform Civic Science they watch at least an hour of reality TV each week in a late 2022 survey. That’s a 30% jump from the 44% of 18- to 24-year-olds who reported watching reality TV weekly in a 2017 survey by the platform. And 38% of those respondents said they’re tuning into reality shows for five or more hours each week. That extensive consumption of reality TV means Gen Z consumers are very familiar with the tropes and storylines that often appear across those reality series, and H&R Block tapped creative agency and production company Piro to ensure that “Responsibility Island” would fit into those genre conventions. The casts of reality dating series are often the most interesting aspect for viewers, and Piro helped H&R Block develop a cast of eccentric characters on the cusp of financial independence. The six fictional contestants were given unique names, such as “Jynyphyr” and “TayTay,” and equally unique careers ranging from “astrology-coded skincare entrepreneur” to “freelance glassblower.” The idea of having an iron with a “snooty” British accent as the host of the series stemmed from the trope of having an “unexpected device or voice present itself as this all-knowing facilitator of the narrative, as is the case with the omniscient voiceover narrator of “Too Hot to Handle,” Cress said. Closely mirroring reality dating show conventions gave Duolingo’s own parody series “Love Language” added legitimacy among the Gen Z audience it sought to reach with the spoof, said Michaela Kron, Duolingo’s global marketing campaign director. The brand released a trailer for the show—which added a twist to the dating show genre by having none of the contestants speak the same language—as its April Fools’ Day campaign last year. Though the series shown in the trailer was never actually going to be produced, Kron and her team sought to make the trailer as convincing as possible. They tapped Francesca Farago, who had appeared in popular series such as “Love Is Blind” and “Too Hot to Handle,” as a cast member, and partnered with Peacock to have the streaming service promote the supposed new dating series across its social channels and within the Peacock platform, Kron said. H&R Block’s “Responsibility Island,” which releases on Feb. 16, will similarly appear on the streaming platform Roku in addition to the brand’s social channels. “[Farago] has this reputation of appearing on a lot of these types of shows,” Kron said. “And when we released the trailer, we saw a lot of those comments, like, ‘Oh my god, Francesca’s everywhere,’ or ‘She’s doing another show?’ And we ended up seeing a lot of TikTok creators put up reaction videos and saying, ‘Oh my god, is this real? Duolingo’s actually doing a reality show?’ There was even a change.org petition to make it a real show.” Duolingo also looked to members of its marketing team who were avid reality dating show fans to inform many of the creative decisions in the “Love Language” trailer, such as confessionals with the cast members and over-dramatic moments like Farago throwing another contestant’s clothes off of a balcony while screaming, “F*ck you!” The brand also chose to create a “Meet the Cast” video for the fictional dating series after studying other reality dating shows and discovering many of them used cast introductions for their promotional content, Kron said. The campaign ultimately amassed more than 70 million impressions across social media and 1 billion overall impressions, according to Duolingo. @peacock They’re single, ready to mingle, and…monolingual?! Love Language, a Peacock and @duolingo original series coming soon…or is it? #Duolingo #LoveLanguage #Dating ♬ Peacock_Duolingo_LoveLanguageMeetTheCast - Peacock “There’s sort of a formula to [reality TV] if you consume enough of this content, and I think having that perspective from someone who's like a true fan of that genre always adds a lot of value, and we’ve seen this with other campaigns we’ve run, too,” Kron said. For example, Duolingo tapped anime fans within its own team to shape the marketing around its collaboration with streaming service Crunchyroll. Neutrogena, too, parodied the reality dating genre in its “Hydro House” campaign last January. The brand partnered with agency Movers+Shakers to produce a social media miniseries that mimicked the format of “The Bachelor,” with contestants competing to win the heart of a bottle of Neutrogena’s Hydro Boost cleanser. Like Duolingo, Neutrogena and Movers+Shakers brought on dating show alumni including Harry Jowsey of Netflix series “Too Hot To Handle” and former contestants on “The Bachelor,” Hannah Ann Sluss and Danny Padilla, to lend a sense of legitimacy to the brand’s spoof. @neutrogena_us Find out who’s sneaking off with Hydro Boost 💧😲 coming soon on @Neutrogena_US #HydroHouse #Neutrogena #GelCleanser ♬ original sound - Neutrogena NYX Professional Makeup in September partnered with Lauren Speed-Hamilton and Cameron Hamilton, who got engaged during the first season of “Love is Blind,” to host its own satirical TikTok dating show “Blind to Brows.” Along with mimicking the name of the dating series its hosts heralded from, NYX also parodied the “Love is Blind” format of having contestants look for their perfect match without seeing one another by having “Blind to Brows” contestants cover up their eyebrows. Building off of “Hydro House, Neutrogena also expanded its efforts to connect to Gen Z via the broader reality TV genre with its social media series “The Great Face Race” in September. The four-episode series, hosted by Olympian and brand ambassador Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone, put a spin on reality competition series by pitting dermatologists and influencers against each other in a series of skincare-related challenges that simultaneously served to educate consumers about the featured products. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Neutrogena (@neutrogena)

How the reality TV genre is helping brands like H&R Block connect with Gen Z

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