When Meghan Magner became VP of marketing at the 150-year-old, highly respected national law firm of Ropes & Gray three years ago, she noticed that the firm hadn't paid
much attention to PR.
Not good, since Magner's arrival coincided with changing market forces, namely law firms becoming more PR savvy. With that in mind, the 700-lawyer law firm concluded that it
needed someone in-house on the marketing side.
So, in 2003 Magner launched an "extensive" search to find a PR agency, eventually hiring Boston-based Castle Group both for its PR services as well as its cultural fit. "Castle
Group would be working with a lot of lawyers and we had to know that they would blend in well," Magner says.
The aim was to focus on six of the company's practice groups (it has a total of 20) and go deeper into a more formal PR program. "We focused on announcements that were
important to the firm, but that also created visibility for the partners who were experts in their fields," says Beth Monaghan, account director at Castle Rock. "Some already had
relationships with the media, but this was the first concerted effort to promote them."
So, when Google announced its intention to issue an IPO in Spring 2004, it presented an opportunity for an expert, from R&G's Venture Capital & Technology Group, to
provide from a legal perspective commentary on the news announcement.
"Every day we'd be reading all the newspapers and checking Web sites looking for reasons for the lawyers to comment," Monaghan says. "With Google, there was so much hype
leading up to the IPO that we had a good idea when it was going to happen. The thing that set the Google announcement apart was while all parties related to the announcement were
bound by SEC quiet period restrictions and couldn't talk about it, R&G could."
Although the R&G Technology Group was well-known in Boston, it was less so in other cities, which presented Castle with the challenge of pitching an unknown expert from a
little known organization against other, better known pundits, for news that would run on the front pages of national media outlets.
R&G law partner and co-head of the Technology Group, David Walek, wrote three bullet points about what the IPO and "Dutch Auctions," which is a complicated, technical and
widely unknown method of issuing an IPO, meant for Google. And while the Castle Group knew about the proposed IPO for weeks and planned accordingly, none knew the exact day of the
announcement.
"It was a watch and wait situation," Magner says. "Every day we were poised to move if we had to. The timing on this was absolutely critical. And when it broke, we had an hour
to get this out there. So we sat down and starting calling everyone on our list. At that point it was kind of a train out of control. In a good way, though."
The PR team called a dozen or so top wire services and daily newspapers, reaching more than 60 reporters; around 70 of those reporters contacted ended up running a quote from
Walek in their articles on the Google IPO.
"It was insane," Monaghan says. "We started calling in the afternoon and then all of a sudden, our phones started lighting up. First came an Associated Press piece, and that in
turn went everywhere. Then other reporters saw David being quoted, and started calling him. It went on like that for a day or two and by the next morning we had 75 article
placements."
Other hits included the Boston Globe, Investor's Business Daily, the Miami Herald, Newsday, Newsweek, Reuters, and some cable TV
outlets.
"There was lots of coverage about the Dutch Auction aspect, which we were able to capitalize on," Monaghan says. And that was for starters. The second part came when the
co-founders of Google, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, were featured in an article in Playboy, causing intense speculation in the media about whether this violated the
"quiet period" rules. "So we were able to do the same thing again," Monaghan says. "The difference was that we had laid the ground work so all these reporters already knew
Walek."
Phase two ended up getting coverage in more than 120 media outlets, including ABC News, Bloomberg Radio and CNN Online. "After that, the Google coverage was pretty much
finished. It was so immediate and so breaking news, that once the IPO happened and everything was settled, that was it," Monaghan says.
Adds Magner: "What was neat about the Google experience was that when you're marketing a law firm, you're really marketing the people in it. There aren't a lot of journalists
who cover law firms as such, and they don't generally profile every partner in the firm. Plus, some news organizations are wary of giving law firms attribution in their quotes.
It's easier to get the individual lawyers in a story.
She adds: "You have to balance promoting issues important to, and about, the law firm, but also seize upon what's current news. And this one blended them both. It was something
our lawyers knew a lot about, and it was a great synergy."
A bonus to the media campaign arrive when Castle went on to win several awards, including one from the Legal Marketing Association's New England chapter and a Bell Ringer for
"Response to Breaking News" award from the Publicity Club of New England.
"It's harder to get press for unknown companies," Monaghan says. "So while the more rewarding work is when you do break-through, it's more exciting to be able to work with a
well-respected law firm like Ropes & Gray. Getting their name out on important news issues and watching it work was one of the most amazing things I've ever seen."
CONTACTS: Beth Monaghan, 617.227.0012 x248, [email protected]
CLIENT: Ropes & Gray, PR AGENCY: Castle Group, CATEGORY: Media Relations, BUDGET: $18,000, TIMEFRAME: January 2005
KING OF THE COMMENTARY CASTLE: Law partner David Walek's expertise and timeliness at the time of the Google IPO, and the subsequent Playboy interview with Google's
founders, landed him interviews with more than 200 media outlets.
Prepping the partners
One of the most challenging aspects of the Google IPO, says Meghan Magner, vp of marketing at Ropes & Gray, was coordinating everything with R&G partner David Walek,
who had to put his whole schedule on hold. "The reason this worked was because he made himself available and we got the timing right," Magner says. Another potential problem: they
had less time than usual to prepare when the news broke. "We do prep people prior to going out on interviews. But because lawyers are so busy, I do an abridged version of it."