I don’t understand why lawyers think denigrating themselves and the profession is an effective marketing tool. Like the Nilan Johnson video I wrote about before, here is an attempt at humor that fails miserably. Lawyer as shakedown bully? Is that really the image this guy wants to present? I guess so, given this video and [...]
How many lawyers does it take to screw in a lightbulb? That’s the joke behind a new marketing video from the Minneapolis law firm Nilan Johnson Lewis. But is the joke on the firm?
Here’s the set-up: In an office-building lobby, a maintenance worker uses a pole to reach into a ceiling fixture and unscrew a presumably blown-out lightbulb. As he removes it, a group of five lawyers enters the lobby. One, talking on his mobile phone as he eyes the worker, says, “Wait a second, I got to take care of something right now.” With that, he reaches into his briefcase, pulls out a replacement bulb and takes the pole from the worker. Then, all five lawyers grab the pole and walk in unison in a circle, collectively screwing in the bulb. As they do, the words appear, “Team vs. Individual,” followed by, “We work together, so we win together.”
Yes, collaboration is a good thing. But not a good thing, at least in the eyes of the clients who pay the bills, is redundancy.
I understand that this video is tongue-in-cheek. According to an email I received, it represents “the latest in a long string of innovative marketing campaigns laced with subtle humor and the firm’s willingness to poke fun at itself.”
I like humor. Really I do. But even if the firm’s intent was to poke fun at itself, at what cost? Is the predominant message here a positive one? Isn’t the message, “Our firm will use five people to do the work of one”? The fact of the matter is, it doesn’t and shouldn’t take five lawyers to change a light bulb. If that’s how many lawyers you use to change a light bulb, how many are you going to send to a deposition?
Not to mention, the poor worker whose job it was to change the bulb appeared to be handling it just fine until the lawyers took it over. So the secondary message is, “We grab control without being asked of things that aren’t our business in the first place.”
I feel bad when a legal marketer brings something to my attention with obvious pride in what they’ve done, only to find myself disagreeing. To me, this video is funny only until you stop to think about it–or perhaps I should say, until a potential client stops to think about it.
Ah, but this post is not all sour grapes. The video was produced as part of a broader relaunch of the firm’s website and messaging. Here, the firm has succeeded. I have not gone back and looked at the firm’s former website, but its new site is nicely designed with strong messaging, simple navigation and good writing. I would rethink the video if I were them, but the website is a keeper.
Am I wrong about this video? What do you think?
The attorney general of Massachusetts, Martha Coakley, has launched a blog called At Issue & In Focus. The introductory post says:
This blog is designed to help residents to understand and participate in the work of their government. We will strive to address topics relevant to the broadest possible audience and will grow to include all the areas in which the work of this office affects Massachusetts residents, including consumers, families, businesses and others.
The AG’s office now also has a Twitter feed and an official YouTube channel. A statement of the AG’s Web communications policies says her use of Twitter “is intended as one-way communication” and the office will “not respond via Twitter to press inquiries, consumer complaints, or other constituent matters.”
TechnoLawyer just published the latest in its YouLaw series of lawyer video critiques: My Law Firm Is Better Than Your Law Firm. I am a member of the YouLaw “back bench,” which means I get to add a quick comment at the end to supplement Gerry Oginski’s in-depth review.
Another in the series was published on Feb. 9: Read My Lips (Since My Video Didn’t Sync Properly).
Us back-benchers do not see Oginski’s review or each others’ comments before they are published. It has been interesting over the course of this series to see how our comments compare. More often than not, we agree with each other. I would love to hear your thoughts on these videos.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6XxhdGbfAY]
This is part of the Legal Channels series, produced by the Legal Talk Network in cooperation with Law.com.
The TechnoLawyer Blog recently launched a regular feature it calls YouLaw, which reviews law firm advertising videos that are posted to YouTube. New York medical malpractice lawyer Gerald Oginski writes the
reviews. At the end of each review is a section called “Back Bench,” in which other experts add their nutshell opinions. Now I’ve joined the Back Bench, along with bench-warmers Kelly Chang Rickert and Neil Squillante, TechnoLawyer’s publisher. My first contribution is now up, as part of Oginski’s review of the video of a Fresno DUI lawyer. Check out the video and see if you agree with us.
Law.com and LegalTalkNetwork.com have collaborated to launch Legal Channels, a service that produces professional-quality marketing and informational videos for lawyers and law firms. The videos are produced by Emmy award winning broadcast professionals (these are the folks who produce my Lawyer2Lawyer podcast) and the finished videos are posted on both Law.com and LegalTalkNetwork.com, as well as on YouTube. In addition to the online versions of the videos, broadcast-quality versions will also be available. Check out the Legal Channels page to see samples.
The Connecticut Law Tribune’s Tom Scheffey interviews me for his article today, ‘Duby-ous News’?, which follows up on a controversy I previously wrote about at Law.com’s Legal Blog Watch surrounding a PR consultant’s role in a law firm’s staged news program.
The half-hour program features two partners from Hartford’s Shipman & Goodwin being interviewed about a recent $12.4 million jury win in an eminent domain case against the town of Branford, Conn. Conducting the interview is the firm’s PR consultant, Duby McDowell, a former TV journalist. In the video, she is identified as “Duby McDowell, WFSB Political Analyst,” but never as a paid PR consultant for the lawyers being interviewed. Her “co-host” in interviewing the two lawyers, Tanya Meck, is identified as a former planning and zoning chair in West Hartford, without any mention that she, too, is a paid PR consultant.
In the comments to the Legal Blog Watch post, the firm wrote a response in which it says, among other points, “No reasonable person could have thought that the video was an WFSB news program.”
One footnote to all this: The CLT article quotes one person who questions the whole idea of a law firm creating a Web page and a video to explain a court victory. Given the controversy this victory created — it was an eminent domain case and taxpayers would have to foot the bill — I think the firm’s creation of an explanatory Web page was a good idea. I even think the video was a good idea. My one concern is that the video was produced in a manner that made it misleading, especially when the video was taken from the context of the Web page and broadcast over local cable-access stations. But the Web page was a good idea, from a PR point of view.
