Rebranding advice for the IRS

Who is Steve Stoute?
A 36-year-old former music executive who now runs his own marketing agency, Translation Consultation & Brand Imaging.

His approach: Combine a hip-hop philosophy and business practicality so that a brand will be more appealing to a younger, trendier audience.

BusinessWeek takes a look at Stoute in its current issue. According to the magazine, some of Stoute’s major clients include GM, McDonald’s, Procter & Gamble, Hershey, Microsoft and Estée Lauder.

There’s one more … uh … company … that Stoute says, in the bio box accompanying the story, that he’d like to rebrand to help it reach a new generation of consumers:

"The IRS should no longer hide behind the stick and allow fear to dominate its image. There is an opportunity to illustrate to Americans that the IRS is of value to them in ways both societal and personal."

Imagine how high those IRS customer service satisfaction ratings could go with a little crafty brand repositioning.

Perhaps the agency should create a MySpace page. It would definitely be interesting to see just who wants to be the tax collector’s friend.