Q. of the Day: Does advertising "work?"
Question: Does advertising drive business into a law firm?
Generally speaking (and I'm going to condense a 4-year advertising degree into a paragraph here), there are two kinds of advertising:
- Brand
- Promotional
Quickest and dirtiest definitions as follows: Brand = what we want you to think. Promotional = what we want you to do.
Very few corporate law firms -- and by very few I mean none that I've seen -- do promotional advertising. Many plaintiffs firms do. Unless there is a specific call for a buy or sales-forward action, it ain't promotional.
So law firm advertising is generally classified as brand advertising. Whether it's positional brand, category brand, sub-category brand, institutional brand, commodity brand, niche brand, community brand... whatever... it's brand advertising. It's trying to get the reader to think and/or feel a certain way about the firm.
Does this translate into clients? I don't know.
It translates into customers for every other industry on the planet, but lawyers seem to keep coming back to this question like swallows to Capistrano. The acceptance of brand value as a major mover of economic indicators in a category is so widely accepted in all the retail industries that it's no longer tested. It's like gravity -- it's there. If you go back in time a few decades, you'll find that most of the major ad agencies and brands did loads of testing and found out that having a strong brand preference was actually one of the most valuable assets a company could maintain. Why? Because it's intangible and cannot be stolen, replicated or undercut by a competitor. You may beat my price, improve on my product or take my best employees... but there is no way you can usurp a brand's identity.
People are loyal to brands they love in the face of overwhelming reasons not to be. They pay extra for the same number of features (see Apple, VW and every piece of clothing in Old Navy). How did those brands get there? Advertising.
Some lawyers claim that "the law is different." How? Because it's a service? A knowledge service? I don't buy it. Brand advertising works for political campaigns. For both politicians and causes. It works for highly complex services like database hosting and programming. The only reason we don't have more data on why it does or doesn't work for law firms is that the marketing rigor required to test brand advertising's effectiveness over the course of 5-15 years has never been practiced at any firm I've ever heard of. First, you have to implement a mature, serious, full-fledged, integrated marketing program in place. At the onset, you'll need to do some serious baseline measurements of profitability, churn, market share, mindshare, etc. Then you run a consistent brand campaign for a few years, periodically tweaking and testing it. In no less than 5 years, you'll have some directional data. In no less than 10, you'll have decent started data. In no less than 15, you'll have solid data on brand effectiveness in terms of whether or not it "gets new clients."
Or... you could do what most other firms that advertise do and accept that brand advertising has a positive effect on your image, which will, in turn "soften the ground" for your business development efforts.
Or... you could get really wooly and run a by-god promotional ad campaign. You know... put an ad in a major trade pub that says you'll knock 25% off your hourly rate for all new clients in such-and-such a practice area that sign up before such-and-such a date. Or offer the first 40 hours of service free. Or say that all work done by first and second year associates is free for all new clients that sign up before such-and-such a date.
You know... give people a reason to become a client, other than that, "We are a full service law firm with 3,025 years of experience. We offer our clients the best value and professional... yadda yadda yadda." Since most law firm advertising sounds exactly like every other firm's advertising, there isn't much of a reason for a potential client to choose one firm over another. Most firms are, in my opinion, so risk averse that they hamstring their own marketing efforts. I think a firm that tried a good, old-fashioned promotional play might just get some real action.
What I tell my clients these days, though, is that until they want to get serious about a marketing plan, they shouldn't bother with advertising. It's like worrying about the paint-and-paper before building the foundation. If you aren't measuring your groups' and lawyer's individual productivity and profitability, advertising is a waste of time. If you haven't been doing client interviews for the last few years, advertising won't help much. If you don't have a serious PR and messaging plan in place, advertising isn't your first worry. If you don't have a professional development program underway to train your associates in how to become, eventually, partners... you get the drift. Good advertising can be a fantastic part of a serious marketing program. But it's about, say... Chapter 10. You need Chapters 1-9 first.
So: whether or not advertising will get you any clients will depend on whether or not the rest of your marketing -- and the way you conduct the business of your firm in general -- is up to scratch. As grandpa used to say, you can't put much of a shine on a shoe that's mostly holes.
I'm originally from Boston, so you can guess how I felt about Sunday's game. Can you say "dynasty?" Anyway, I like the ads more than the game. It's an industrial hazard for those of us in the marketing game. If you missed any of the plugs this year, you can find them all 
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