Marketing for Morons IV: The Search for Schlock
Today's topic: legal advertising.
Legal advertising has always left a slightly bad taste in my mouth, like biting into aluminum foil. Coated with slug trail. You know: like used car ads, only really tacky.
A few years back, an attorney in my state billed himself as "the Hammer." The point being, I guess, that he would "hammer" the other guy (get it? get it?). But all I could think was, "hire a hammer if you want a tool." Probably not the message he wanted.
But as more recent ad prompted this post. A law firm has recently began putting out a commerical for agreed divorces in my town. I guess that's okay, as far as it goes. Divorces happen, and lessening the costs involved seems at least arguably good (at least in the short run). But then they ran testimonial from a satisfied customer, who said -- and I quote -- "I would use [the law firm] again and again."
Again and again? Ok, I know a lot of people say marriage may not be forever, but he's actually going into this thinking he may well need the divorce guys "again and again"?
Why aren't the women lined up around the block for this guy?
Almost as mysterious: what was the firm thinking in running that wording in their ad?!
I swear, there's an ether-huffing epidemic in adland these days.
Legal advertising has always left a slightly bad taste in my mouth, like biting into aluminum foil. Coated with slug trail. You know: like used car ads, only really tacky.
A few years back, an attorney in my state billed himself as "the Hammer." The point being, I guess, that he would "hammer" the other guy (get it? get it?). But all I could think was, "hire a hammer if you want a tool." Probably not the message he wanted.
But as more recent ad prompted this post. A law firm has recently began putting out a commerical for agreed divorces in my town. I guess that's okay, as far as it goes. Divorces happen, and lessening the costs involved seems at least arguably good (at least in the short run). But then they ran testimonial from a satisfied customer, who said -- and I quote -- "I would use [the law firm] again and again."
Again and again? Ok, I know a lot of people say marriage may not be forever, but he's actually going into this thinking he may well need the divorce guys "again and again"?
Why aren't the women lined up around the block for this guy?
Almost as mysterious: what was the firm thinking in running that wording in their ad?!
I swear, there's an ether-huffing epidemic in adland these days.
3 Comments:
"Almost as mysterious: what was the firm thinking in running that wording in their ad?!" - where's the mystery?
They were probably the same thing every ad firm flunky does all the time: let's do another long liquid lunch, have an affair with the client on the boardroom table, act like pretentious arseholes as we hoover up cocaine and not give an ethical damn about what goes to print.
I mean, hey, it's only advertising. Today's attention-getting brochure, tomorrow's landfill.
By Eddie Flannery, at 4:28 PM
Maybe the guy who said he'd use the firm "again and aigain" was from Utah.
By Sam Ogden, at 9:28 AM
I like in your state, albeit a bit north, and I see those same advertisements for that obnoxious guy.
Anyone who would hire an attorney based on those ads probably tends to also file a lot of workmen's comp claims.
By Naomi, at 7:32 AM
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