Not just TurboTax's parent: Intuit's CMO has a plan to make its corporate brand the star of the show

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You've built your email marketing campaign on Mailchimp, run payroll through QuickBooks, and logged into TurboTax to file your taxes, but did you realize you were using the same company to do all three?

Intuit CMO Thomas Ranese wants to ensure that more consumers connect the dots.

Ranese is placing greater emphasis on the parent brand as part of a plan to position Intuit as a trusted company people turn to for their most important money decisions. At the center of the effort is Intuit Intelligence, the company's combination of AI and human expertise, which it is using to integrate its products into an all-in-one finance platform.

"We need folks to see the benefit of the power of our platform behind these products," Ranese told CMO Insider in an interview. "Doing that by talking about it not just as a family but as a branded house helps us do that."

The move comes as Intuit looks to reaccelerate growth. In August, the company forecast total revenue growth of 9% to 10% for the year ending July 31, 2027, down from the 14% revenue lift it booked in its 2026 financial year. Intuit's execs said on the company's latest earnings call that it was increasing its investments in sales and marketing this year to boost new customer acquisition and scale its higher-value, mid-market business.

Ranese said there are already signs that a more connected marketing approach, underpinned by the Intuit brand, can have direct business benefits. Consumers who use both Credit Karma and TurboTax generate twice the revenue compared to those who only use one of its products, he said. On the business side, "consideration goes way up, and conversion goes way up" when QuickBooks is presented as "brought to you by Intuit," he added.

Intuit is using football and funnies to make the brand more relatable

The branded house strategy is being brought to life through Intuit's sponsorship of the NFL, a partnership the company extended in September to run through 2030. The renewal also expanded Intuit's official rights into the UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Ranese said the NFL offers huge global reach, while the season also runs "smack down the middle" of Intuit's own peak tax season.

Intuit's NFL marketing has homed in on athletes and creators — including Peyton Manning; George Kittle and his wife, Claire; Andrew Whitworth; and Donald De La Haye, known online as "Deestroying" — and how they're making financial decisions and growing their own small businesses.

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Eight weeks into the football season, Intuit said its NFL social media content is nearing 100 million views on Instagram.

"If you think about the diversity of the audience we're trying to reach, both current customers and new customers in the next generation, the NFL is a great way to be relevant to a larger base of people and, frankly, have a little fun," Ranese said.

The lighthearted marketing touch carries over into a separate social content series aimed at Gen Z consumers, launched earlier this year by Intuit, called "Life-ing," in which the brand has partnered with seven up-and-coming comedians to talk about money and relatable anxieties about personal finance.

"This all comes back to: Why can't money be funny? Why can't we touch hearts and tickle funny bones with this topic?" Ranese said. "Ultimately, that's what's going to win people over, and help them trust us, and see us as a relatable brand."

Ranese said "Life-ing" is the best-performing social content the brand has released in its history, in terms of reach, engagement, and driving positive sentiment toward the Intuit brand.

CMOs overseeing a portfolio of products need to perform a risk-reward analysis about when to adopt a branded house marketing strategy, said Jim Stengel, the former CMO of Procter & Gamble, which often elevates the corporate brand at key moments such as the Olympics. When the parent brand is in a good place, leaning into a branded house strategy can build trust and credibility, Stengel said. The business case can be tough to make if there are negative consumer vibes with the parent company, he added.

Stengel said it was smart for Ranese and his team to focus on the legacy Intuit brand, given its level of awareness, trust, and its millions of customers.

"When the parent brand is strong, leverage the heck out of it," Stengel said.