 Life’s Short – Get a Divorce
Marketing tips for insane lawyers (or those just wanting to get on TV)
by Tony Wilson
Some time in 2007, an enterprising business in Chicago erected a billboard in a prominent part of the city that I must describe in prurient detail. On the left side was a photograph of a provocatively undressed woman, sitting on a bed, leaning toward the camera advertising her thong, her skimpy black lingerie, and her immodestly displayed breasts, which may or may not have been enhanced by digital software, surgery or my memory. Of note was that you could not see her face. It was a torso only shot, but it was quite a torso.
In the event BarTalk gets scads of complaint letters about the last paragraph, I must give equal offence to the right side of the billboard. It was a photograph of a man, (perhaps the zeitgeist counterpart of the woman described above). He was muscular, buff, ribbed, potentially enhanced and similarly headless; it also being a torso only shot.
I suppose if they were selling fitness classes, exercise bicycles, lingerie, plastic surgery, towels, Viagra or condoms, there wouldn’t have been the brouhaha that there was. But in between the lusty and busty images was the ad’s pitch. They were selling legal services. The ad read: LIFE’S SHORT – GET A DIVORCE. The stunt got the firm on every TV screen in the U.S.
The billboard came down after the partners got enough media exposure to get make them “celebrities,” which, being the United States, is probably what they wanted in the first place. One partner, who it turns out was the lurid female torso in the billboard, will apparently do a nude photo shoot for Playboy this year, giving a whole new meaning to cross-marketing your firm amid stiff competition, exploiting your best assets and other limp clichés.
I say we could all learn from this bold marketing initiative and abandon silly umbrellas, hats and golf balls with our logos on them. They’re so small town cheap! So here are some tips of mine to help your firm get on TV! Remember, no publicity is bad publicity!
 On roads near funeral homes, your firm could put up this billboard: “Disinherited? Ask about the Wills Variation Act.” Or near hospitals, your billboard could read: “Wrong diagnosis? We sue doctors!” Or, for truly creative marketers, after unsuccessful operations, you could offer to put the same slogan on the most underused advertising space in the world: coffins! That will definitely get you on TV. Or disbarred (Or both)!
A little risk averse? OK, you could emulate the successful “Junk” franchises and surreptitiously slap your firm logo (and a catchy 1-800 number) on telephone poles and strategically parked trucks: 1-800-SUE-ANYONE. Too crass? OK, how about supporting kids’ sports teams by requiring this slogan to go on the back of hockey and lacrosse jerseys with your logo: “Bad Call? We sue referees and the parents of goons.”
Over the top? OK, be that way. Simply use me in your marketing endeavours. Having just bought a new sailboat, I’ll let you place your logo all over the nice new sails you buy for me in time for the Vic-Maui race. Pay me boatloads more money and I’ll rename the boat after your firm!
Want to promote the “shark” theme to advertise your litigators? OK, I’ll make sure my wetsuit prominently features your firm logo the next time I go shark diving, just like a European soccer player’s jersey. Of course, you’ll have to pay me loads of money to do it, because it’s very dangerous.
Not as dangerous as this advice though.
Vancouver Franchise Lawyer Tony Wilson practices at Boughton Law Corporation in Vancouver, and has written for the Globe and Mail, Macleans Magazine and Canadian Lawyer. twilson@boughton.ca | www.boughton.ca/people/lawyers/tony_wilson
This article was published in the August 2008 issue of BarTalk. © 2008 The Canadian Bar Association. All rights reserved. |
