A Plea To Legal Marketers: Please Don’t Do This

This generic brand video parodies the modern corporate advert: laden with clichés, stock images, buzzwords, and emptiness.

An advert for when there’s nothing to say.

Although this takes aim at large corporations, there are lessons for us legal marketers.

We’ve all done this stuff.

In a law firm context, it could be the dull matter description in the firm’s annual report, the scales of justice slapped on to a website, the bland design imagery for the latest brochure, the insincere copy in the corporate social responsibility report.

There’s a lot of bad marketing material in our world, and we’ve helped to create it.

Even in the legal directories world, where I focus my time, we’re advised by the directory publishers to “please avoid conventional clichés and marketing speak about client service” in our submissions.

With my submissions, I try hard not to drift into marketing speak – but to write in a clear, concise fashion with minimal jargon.

But I’ve done it. We all have. It’s impossible to spend a career in legal marketing and not have faltered occasionally.

This video has reminded me how important it is to write and speak like a real person.

The advantage we have is that we’re marketing highly skilled human beings – not objects where the uninspired advertiser tries to create an emotional response to get you to connect with their product.

So, it should be easier for us.

I fear though that as the market consolidates and law firms look and feel more like corporations, we’re going to see more of this marketing emptiness.