Company: Holland & Hart LLP
Timeframe: 2006, ongoing
Launching a campaign with a media event is a good time to pull out all the stops. But it's often not as simple as finding creative, over-the-top ways to crow about your
client's accomplishments and expertise. In fact, if your client or company is a law firm, you might be legally precluded from saying "specialist," "expert," "result,"
"outstanding" or other superlatives.
Says Mark Beese, marketing guy for the law firm Holland & Hart (yes, that's his official title), "There are a lot of legal and ethical restrictions on what we can say or do
in advertising. Each state bar or supreme court sets ethics for that state." Holland & Hart is the largest law firm in the Rocky Mountain West, with nearly 350 attorneys
working in 13 offices in seven states.
Because the firm operates in seven states, it is controlled by seven sets of rules. "Some prevent us from using direct client testimonials in advertising," says Beese. "In some
of our states, we can't depict clients saying they like using Holland & Hart. These restrictions are set up to protect consumers who adhere to the age-old belief that lawyers
are masters of persuasion and as such can't be trusted with unrestricted commercial speech. It's a very archaic idea." But the fact remains that the restrictions must be obeyed.
"We have restrictions as to the words we use," says Beese. "You can't use superlatives, such as 'expert,' 'better' or 'best,' and you can't say 'superlative' or 'peerless.'" In
addition to the restrictions on the uses of language, "Some states won't let you use photos of actors or models pretending to be lawyers," Beese adds. "In some states, they have
to be actual clients or lawyers."
With Holland & Hart's new ad campaign, the firm chose to associate itself with innovative clients - it wanted to be seen as an innovative law firm that cares about its
clients in a subtle and sophisticated manner, but not hit people over the head with a strong marketing message. It opted to tell interesting stories about resourceful and
successful clients, and by doing so, create a positive impression of the firm by association. But it had to keep the rules in mind.
The PR team decided to combine the elements of print advertising, video and a launch media event to achieve its goals.The print ad campaign featured CEOs of the firm's clients
outdoors, in front of gorgeous western landscapes (the firm's trademark image). Ad copy related each client's innovations, creativity and business success without transgressing
the "no testimonial" ethics rules. Capturing those images was a challenge in its own right.
The print ads had to contain original photos of the CEOs in the wilderness, and they needed to be captivating and authentic. "The clients love it, getting their face in the
paper in the market they are interested in," says Beese. The tie-ins for Holland & Hart with their innovative clients and the gorgeous mountain scenery that is its trademark
were obvious benefits. "The biggest challenge was getting the CEOs up at 3 a.m., driving 500 miles to a remote location for a sunrise or sunset photo shoot, and then back home
again. But each photo has turned out terrific," he adds.
The ads convey the impression that Holland & Hart, like its clients, is innovative and resourceful, cares about people and is a thought leader. The choice of CEOS was
important. The companies portrayed needed to be successful, creative and non-controversial. Therefore, clients that were in potentially controversial industries, however
innovative they might be, might not convey the messages the law firm wanted to link with its name. So, it opted to feature CEOs of companies that had developed new medical devices
to help people live with congestive heart conditions, or that had invented a new ski apparel fabric that was supple on the turns but hardened to provide protection for the skin
against ice during a fall on the slopes.
Holland & Hart's print ads were so well received that clients soon began clamoring to be represented in them, sometimes requiring tactful letdowns. But the print ads were
just the tip of the iceberg. A multimedia campaign involving a five-minute TV series called "Business Class" aired on Frontier Airlines' Wild Blue Yonder network, each featuring
an innovative client of the firm. The CEOs were many of the same people featured in the print ads, which ran in Frontier Airlines' in-flight magazine, as well as regional business
media and national legal media. The client videos were featured on the firm's Web site, (visit http://www.hollandhart.com/wildblueyonder.cfm) and on YouTube.com and Google Video.
The decision to launch into video started with a discussion of how to do something out of the box. Frontier is a Holland & Hart client, and it was the first airline to have
its own in-flight programming. Passengers on its flights have a choice of buying Direct TV or watching the carrier's network. Beese says 95% opt for the airlines' network. Plus,
some 40% of Frontier's clientele are business travelers, a desirable audience for Holland & Hart's purposes. Frontier also has a reputation for creativity and innovation
(check out http://www.frontierairlines.com/frontier/fun-stuff/commercials.do).
The selection was a natural. Beyond the fact that many of Frontier's clients are business flyers, the airline's destinations include cities where Holland & Hart has offices
and does business. In addition, a lot of Holland & Hart's clients - and potential clients - fly Frontier. The PR team suggested that Frontier add business editorial to its
magazine, which had none, as well as business content in its in-flight programming.
"We started producing TV shows," says Beese. "We tossed around a lot of ideas, working with a video company called the Light Group. The segments focused on our clients, because
we can't do testimony but could tie our brand to their brands, innovation and success. We let them tell their story, and we integrated that with our brand."
The campaign's success was measured using three tools. An airport intercept study involved interviewing passengers coming out of Frontier and other airlines about their message
recall. Half were Frontier passengers, half were not. The PR team also partnered with Frontier for an online survey of frequent fliers, garnering 865 respondents. A buzz metric
was incorporated, asking people in the community whether they had heard of the print ads or videos.
The campaign resulted in a 60% print ad recall rate (compared with a national average of 37%). The same study showed that 9% of readers recalled discussing the ad or firm over
the past 30 days, and the in-flight TV segment garnered recall rates of 25% of all passengers, and more among business travelers.
Piece de Resistance
The crowning touch, however, was the media event that launched the campaign. The event, held on the 32nd floor of its Denver office, hosted members of the media, including
bloggers, and was positioned as a video premier featuring the first segment of "Business Class."
According to Beese, the fun of the screening took on a life of its own. Invitations for the launch party were designed to resemble Frontier Airlines boarding passes, and press
releases and media kits featured the DVD and copies of the print ads. "We dressed the room like an airplane, we had a marketing intern [in a flight attendant uniform] do the pre-
flight instructions, we supplied media kits, and everyone had giveaways," says Beese. The event attracted 110 atteendees. The senior vice president of Frontier talked about
partnership, and the CEO of Outlast Technologies (another client) talked about how good Holland & Hart had been to his company. The president of an ad agency that partners
with Frontier to put on Wild Blue Yonder remarked on how innovative Holland & Hart's initiative was, the company screened the film, the media held interviews, gifts were
distributed, and evidently a good time was had by all. The premier of Wild Blue Yonder's Holland & Hart segment would be broadcast on hundreds of flights the following week.
The party drew attention in part because it was such a novel marketing approach for a law firm, but also because it is part of a larger trend of using video to market law
firms.
The campaign represented several "firsts" in legal PR: It was the first time any professional service firm had underwritten, produced and "narrowcast" a business segment on the
Wild Blue Yonder network, written a business/legal article in the magazine or advertised in the magazine. It was also the first time a law firm had amplified its print ads with an
in-flight television show. The videos and print ads together were a one-two punch.
Media coverage and buzz spread across the Rockies, in such publications as the Denver Post and Rocky Mountain News, Denver Business Journal, Legal Marketing Association Journal
and American Bar Association Journal. It was picked up for the CBS Nightly News in Denver, and was featured on the e-zine http://www.lawmarketing.com. Such blogs as law.com played up the event, as did travel industry publications and e-zines.
The campaign taught Holland & Hart's PR team some valuable lessons from which other PR practitioners can benefit. "For us, the hook is finding what makes you different.
Focus on differentiating yourself from other firms. Lawyers tend to want to be the same as other law firms, because they value the importance of precedent," says Beese. "When you
are trained to follow precedent, being different is really hard. But that's the key to good PR.
"It's helpful to sit down once in awhile and ask how you can do something nobody else has done. If you can pull it off, if it's different for the legal world, you will get
noticed. Lawyers are more conservative, but you can steal from other worlds and be seen as an innovator."
Of the overall campaign, he says, "It's been an interesting experience. We have clients now lining up to be featured in our ads, calling us to say they want a piece of the
action. We didn't intend for it to last longer than a year, but it has. I am having lunch with a bank president in a couple of weeks. I know what he wants to ask me," he
laughs.
The Holland & Hart campaign was a winner in PR News's Legal PR Awards program.
Contact:
Mark Beese, 303-295-8198, [email protected]
Legal Launches: There's More Than One Way
When the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case eBay vs. MercExchange, Foley & Lardner LLP saw a chance to capitalize on the ongoing patent reform debate and identify its
intellectual property attorneys as thought leaders in that field. To do so, the PR team decided to host a roundtable for the media, featuring representatives from the technology
and pharmaceutical industries.
The eBay vs. MercExchange case focused discussion on one of the most hotly contested debates between the technology and pharmaceutical industries. To make the most of the
opportunity Foley & Lardner knew it would have to go beyond offering a single source from the firm for legal commentary in the media. The lawyers, instead, would present an
analysis of the case from various perspectives to give the media a much better view of the firm's broad expertise.
The timing had to be just right. The team scheduled the roundtable at the National Press Club in Washington D.C. for a few days before oral arguments. Dittus Communications,
the company's media relations firm, helped reach out to reporters from top-tier publications, plus technology and legal trade magazines and journals.
A multitude of lawyers were jumping on the bandwagon, but Foley & Lardner avoided being cast as yet another "me-too" firm by staging the only discussion of the case that
combined both sides of the business debate with neutral legal analysis. It was a one-stop-shopping PR effort, where reporters could gather all the information they needed for
their stories, with a depth and breadth other firms could not match.
Foley attorneys were quoted in more than 30 articles in such outlets as the Financial Times, Reuters, BusinessWeek, the Washington Post, IP Law360 and Inside Counsel. The
coverage reached more than 100 million members of the business and legal communities. The firm plans to make the roundtable an annual event, tying in to important IP cases as they
arise to showcase Foley & Lardner's strongest suits. And, predictably, other law firms are following suit, proving once again that imitation is the sincerest form of
flattery.
Foley & Lardner won an Honorable Mention in PR News's Legal PR Awards program.
Contact: Clay Perschall, 312.832.4510, [email protected]