Situation/Objective:
The national law firm of Ford & Harrison built its name on its labor and employment practice. Its reputation was firmly established, and needed little enhancement. But while recognized as a leading firm in its area, Ford & Harrison knew it could benefit from more continuous exposure to HR managers and other labor and employment professions who, given more frequent reminders of the firm’s expertise, would be more likely to engage it for their legal needs. The firm turned for HC to design a campaign to put Ford & Harrison front and center on the minds of its prospective client base.
HC puts popular culture to work for an employment law practice.
Analysis/Strategy:
A standard media relations campaign might have been an obvious choice for Ford & Harrison’s practice, but HC wanted to make a bigger splash for the firm. HC also recognized that Ford & Harrison, with its solid reputation for labor and employment work, did not necessarily need the credibility-enhancing effect of quotations in national media outlets or article placements in leading trade journals. Always remaining focused on our clients’ business goals, HC kept in mind the true business purpose behind the engagement: to provide repeated exposure to the firm and its abilities in the labor and employment area.
A legal blog could serve that purpose well, but HC realized that dry analysis of labor issues would not keep readers coming back for “repeat viewing.” The concept behind the blog would have to be a special one in order to earn a loyal audience among the nation’s HR professionals. Exercising our well-known creativity (and our remote control), HC came up with a unique, attention-grabbing concept: an employment law blog built around a NBC’s The Office.
Focusing the blog on pop-culture staple The Office would give the blog a very specific hook—something that HC builds into all of the blogs it executes for its clients. There were other several advantages as well. To start, it would make the topic of employment law accessible to the broad population of HR professionals, few of whom are attorneys themselves. The comedic topic would also allow Ford & Harrison to speak in a casual voice appropriate for its wide audience. And the sit-com tie-in provided the basis for a regular weekly blog schedule, an important factor in building a blog’s audience.
In order to ensure the blog received the attention it deserved, HC also proposed that it be hosted on a site independent from the law firm’s own website. This was an innovative approach to the publication a legal blog, but HC understood that given its business purpose, it would be far more advantageous to take the blog directly to its target audience than to hope it was discovered within the Ford & Harrison website.
Results/Execution:
The blog, called “That’s What She Said,” featured weekly posts following the airing of an episode. In each post, a Ford & Harrison attorney would estimate the amount of potential liability raised by the antics of Michael Scott and his Dundler Mifflin crew. After conceiving That’s What She Said, HC marketed it and brokered a partnership with M. Lee Smith Publishers to host it on their HR Hero site, a popular web destination for HR professionals.
Today, That’s What She Said has been covered in The New York Times and Wall Street Journal, made annual appearances on the ABA Journal’s Blawg 100, and receives more than 12,000 unique visits a day. Years after Ford & Harrison first came to HC, it continually promotes the firm to its target market.