Penetrating Global Markets with Branding

By Larry Bodine, LawMarketing Portal Operator, www.Lawmarketing.com.

Reprinted with permission by The LawMarketing Portal .

What is the most powerful country in the world? The U.S.? No. China? No. Russia? No.

According to Richard Levick, it is the Vatican. It's a tiny little principality inside Italy, but it has more than a billion followers worldwide. "This is the power of ideas," said Levick, the President of Levick Strategic Communications, the worldwide leader in law firm business development media relations, representing nearly one quarter of the AMLAW 100 and many of the Global 50.

The Power of Ideas

Moving from the spiritual plane to the vineyards where we lawyers and marketers toil every day, Levick explained how law firms can harness the power of ideas at the WJF Institute, held recently in Austin, Texas.

As we labor on our mortal coils, striving to bring new business in to our law firms, ideas are conveyed by brands. Law firm partners sometimes scoff at the effectiveness of branding. Yet when branding is successful, it is so pervasive that it takes on a life of its own. He gave examples of the four most successful branding campaigns:

Mother's Day, which was an ad campaign for the Wanamaker's department store chain.
Diamond engagement rings, which is a branding campaign of the De Beers diamond company.
Blowing out birthday candles, which was universalized through a campaign of the Kodak film and camera company.
Santa Claus, a cultural icon assimilated by Coca Cola. Notice that Santa Claus has the same colors as a can of Coca Cola.

Brands are intensely powerful. Coca Cola has a 70% market share, yet the company is selling only sugar, water and food coloring. According to Levick, Burger King food scores better in taste tests than McDonald's food, yet McDonald's is the market leader with its dominant brand. Why? Because McDonald's is selling an experience, a relationship.

What Is a Brand?

And just what is a brand, anyway? "A brand is not what you think it is," Levick said. "It is what your clients think it is." He displayed a photo of a man with a huge Harley Davidson motorcycle tattoo on his arm. "Most law firms don't have a brand. When you can get your clients to put a tattoo on their arms with your firm logo, then you have a brand."

Advertising is not branding. "The problem with law firms is that they do a little bit of marketing training, a little bit of public relations, and a little bit of advertising. Just because you do some advertising, no matter how good the advertising, it doesn't mean you have a brand."

He illustrated his point by displaying the taglines that major law firms have used in ads:

"One World. One Firm."
"Your Business is Global. Is Your Law Firm?"
"In Business with the World."

Members of the audience could not identify the law firm associated with these tag lines.

Focus on One Thing

Levick advised marketers and lawyers to focus on one thing -- one message that they can say about their law firm. "Branding demands focus," he said, pointing out that in the minds of consumers, Starbucks = coffee, and coffee = Starbucks. "Their chocolate cake doesn't fight with the coffee for star billing." At Starbucks, the Frappacino outsells the coffee, but Starbucks only markets coffee.

It is misguided only to pursue what Levick calls "umbrella marketing." This is the effort for example, to place an article about the firm in the Wall Street Journal or New York Times. "When asked what success will look like, most partners say, 'Get me in the Wall Street Journal.' That's a fine goal, but it's not marketing. In the last three years, the Wall Street Journal has done only four features on law firms. They may do a feature on your firm only if you've got a compelling and radically different story to tell and you're going to show your warts and all your problems and how you overcame them."

Instead law firms should focus first on direct communications. Communicate in the vertical industry media read by clients and prospects and at the speaking engagements they attend. This means, if you're an energy firm, you need to be in the Petroleum Economist, on the Dow Jones Petroleum News Wire, and speaking at the American Petroleum Conference. Then go even deeper. Get into the horizontal media. This is the media published by your existing clients and strongest prospects. In the energy example, it would be the Phillips Petroleum or BP magazines. Media is designed to reassure clients and prospects. The best way to do this is to get into the media they read.

In order to do this effectively, law firms need to combine their sales and marketing efforts. Few law firms actually engage in sales training for their partners, and virtually none of them integrate these lawyers and practice areas into market penetrating media. There are only two steps in the sales process - finding and choosing. Direct communications gets lawyers found. Sales training gets them chosen.

Benefits to the First

There is a huge benefit to being "first to market" with an idea. This of course is a difficult thing to achieve in risk-averse law firms. "Who was the second person who flew across the Atlantic solo? Bert Hinkler. But you don't know anything about him. If you are going to get attention you have to do it first," he said.

For example, Howrey & Simon was the first law firm to run display advertising in a newspaper, the first major law firm with an ad in the Wall Street Journal, the first law firm to use a Madison Avenue design agency. "They are the largest intellectual property litigation firm in the world," Levick said. "Their brand is that they are a firm that thinks differently."

Law firms need to get over the fact that if they try something first, people will criticize it. "The market will always respond this way to new things," he said.

Find Your Unique Distinction

Law firms should begin their marketing efforts by identifying what distinguishes them from all the other law firms in the profession. "If your firm were a car, what would it be?" Levick asked. "Everyone wants to say 'We are a Mercedes.'" Yet the leading distinction between Mercedes and Chrysler is the three-pointed star logo of Mercedes. "Their engineers went to the same schools and both companies use the same parts suppliers." Similarly, the lawyers at most major law firms went to the same schools and the firms use the same research and litigation support suppliers.

"Telling us you are smarter than the other guys won't cut it," he said. "You have to set your own standard. If you compare yourself to another standard, then you are not the standard. Saying 'We were almost one of the Big 10' is not good enough. IBM doesn't say 'We are almost like Compaq.'"

He advised law firms to adopt the credo of Popeye the Sailor Man. His motto was, "I am what I am." Levick said, "You have to market to your strengths. Don't try to be like anybody else."