 By Steven A. Meyerowitz, a lawyer who is the president of Meyerowitz Communications Inc., a marketing communications consulting company based in Northport, New York. He may be reached at Smeyerow@optonline.net or 631.261.9476.
Domestic and international corporations have long used slogans and tag lines as tools to differentiate themselves from their competitors. Think of Avis' "We try harder," Michelin's "Because so much is riding on your tires," and "Thank goodness for Kleenex." Consider as well Coca-Cola and McDonald's.
Decades of research -- and corporate bottom lines -- support branding as a tool to help sell consumer goods. Larry Smith, the New Jersey-based Director of Strategy for Levick Strategic Communications, maintains that branding works because "it is about differentiating one company from another in the marketplace and giving people an instinctive understanding of what that company is all about." Can law firms use this technique, too?
 Many have begun. In Pennsylvania, for example, Babst, Calland, Clements & Zomnir, P.C., says it has a "Focused practice. Focused knowledge. A clear view of the solutions." Blank Rome Comisky & McCauley LLP claims "Practical Professionals Providing Practical Solutions." Buchanan Ingersoll is "The Law Firm That Business Builds On."
Eckert Seamans Cherin & Mellott, LLC, has "Attorneys who make things happen." The labor law firm of Jackson Lewis LLP states "All we do is work." Kirkpatrick & Lockhart LLP asks clients to "Challenge us." Pepper Hamilton LLP asserts that it is "Defining VALUE in legal services." And Saul Ewing LLP is always "Thinking Ahead."
Ellen Toplin, the president of Toplin & Associates, Inc., a marketing firm based in the Philadelphia suburb of Fort Washington, believes that firms with slogans are on the right track. "It is valuable to have one," she says, because it "helps a law firm to define and encapsulate a key value it believes it brings to its clients and that is important to clients." In essence, Toplin states, a slogan "helps a law firm say this is what we're about -- this is our differentiating factor."
The Rest Of The Story
 However, as has been the case with many of the client development tools that law firms have begun to use over the past two decades, from newsletters and brochures to print and TV advertising, slogans have their critics. A marketing director of a large Ohio-based law firm says that the focus that legal marketers recently have begun to place on slogans and logos "is insane." Although he agrees that there are good reasons for retail companies to have tag lines, he argues that law firms typically do not have the marketing infrastructure to support the development of a slogan. His firm does "not even have a system to measure how much revenue we take in from a client on a yearly basis." In this situation, he contends, developing a slogan "is like coming to a black tie event wearing just the black tie." He thus believes that the money that he says it can take to develop a slogan -- as much as $125,000 -- can be better used by law firms on other marketing programs.
Levick's Larry Smith has some similar concerns about the use of slogans by law firms, noting that "the problem is that law firms are not manufacturers." Consumer goods are always the same -- tires are tires, hamburgers are hamburgers. "But with law firms, clients are not getting cake all the time," he says. "Dealing with one partner can be different from dealing with another partner," according to Smith. Branding fails when it tries to create the impression that "when you use us, what you see is what you get. General counsel are too smart to buy that."
Still, Smith agrees that slogans and branding can have a place in the law firm arena. In his view, "they can be effective for smaller firms to establish their identity through marketing a particular niche." Boutique firms with a particular focus -- representing companies in "bet the company cases" or intellectual property matters -- or even general service firms known for having a particular practice area can develop a workable slogan. Yet there nevertheless may be a downside for these firms, Smith declares. "The danger with this kind of marketing is you can alienate other parts of the firm." Smith postulates as an example a law firm that has three practice groups and a slogan that focuses on its IP work. "What will the labor and tax groups do?"
When it comes down to it, the question may be whether law firms and manufacturers really are that different. Consultant Toplin believes that "every corporation, small or large, has a culture and a personality that percolates throughout the organization." Accordingly, she also believes that all law firms can develop an appropriate slogan, although she recognizes that large law firms have more lawyers who can dilute the brand (by failing to focus on it when serving clients) and small law firms may find it harder to develop one (because they need to spend their time practicing law and because they have fewer financial resources than larger firms). Nevertheless, she says all law firms ultimately can find a brand that is "something they really live."
Indeed, Toplin also says that it can be important for law firms to develop a brand even though they may not have the resources to fully promote it. The mere process of developing a slogan -- as contrasted with the costly procedures for marketing a brand to clients and prospective clients -- can be of great benefit to a firm because it "can help a firm's lawyers come to an agreement as to what they are about from their clients' perspective." This can help the law firm grow, help it market it services, and help it attract new clients even if the slogan does not become as well known as one for potato chips or tacos. In essence, a slogan in this case serves as a guiding principle for the firm narrowed down to a few short words or phrases. According to Toplin, once a law firm has a slogan, it will affect everything the firm does, from the marketing plans it will create to support the slogan, to its advertising campaigns and charitable contribution programs and to the way the firm's lawyers deliver legal services to clients.
The Process
The key to summarizing a firm through a slogan is that the slogan "has to be real," according to Toplin. Too often, she states, "people come up with who they would like to be, not who they are." The problem is that "what a firm is thought of may be different from what it says its branding statement is." A brand cannot be about sales, she asserts, but must be about "soul searching."
Thus, choosing a slogan for a law firm is not simply a matter of picking one off a shelf. Toplin says that the process begins with telephone interviews of, or questionnaires distributed to, all of the firm's "touch points," including the firm's administrators, managing partner, group leaders, lawyers, recruiting staff, paralegals and secretaries -- as well as its clients and referral sources and the judges who have contact with the firm. All of these individuals have to be asked what distinguishes the firm from other firms and why they would use the firm rather than some other lawyers.
One this information is gathered, Toplin continues, it has to be refined. Representatives of the firm should meet to organize and categorize the data and should decide "what comes to the top." They also have to reach conclusions as to "what can last; it should not be 'here today, gone tomorrow' but they should make sure it has staying power."
The process, Toplin says, continues through the "crafting, refining and shortening" of the slogan, and by making certain that, at this point, it clearly relates to the firm. Once the slogan is chosen, it has to be applied, according to Toplin, "not just on the letterhead, but in everything the firm does, from advertising campaigns to the firm's remuneration system, to reinforce it."
Not An End, But A Beginning
Law firms that move into the slogan-creation mode cannot expect to find a magic ring that will solve all their problems and immediately improve their bottom line. Nevertheless, many firms have decided that this is an appropriate step to take, and if it gets a firm to focus on its relationships with its clients and the service it provides, without taking away from its ability to otherwise market itself, it probably is not a bad thing to do. |
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