Situation/Objectives:
When Canadian law firm Ogilvy Renault came to HC for an announcement code-named Project X for secrecy, it was clearly not going to be an ordinary engagement. Ogilvy Renault, along with South African firm Deneys Reitz, was preparing to merge with powerhouse London-based international law firm Norton Rose LLP. The deal would bring the global firm up to 2,500 lawyers, give it a significant entrée to Asia, and make it one of the 10 largest law firms in the world. HC’s task, to get coverage of the deal in the U.S. press, came with a challenge: the firm did not have any offices in this country.
HC’s tempting pitch gives the U.S. press an appetite for news about non-U.S. firms.
Analysis/Strategy:
HC primary objective was to raise the visibility of the firm in the U.S. Given the domestic legal media’s general lack of interest in stories dealing with non-U.S. firms, however, expectations for U.S. media coverage of the deal were not high.
HC carefully designed its campaign to overcome the “out of sight, out of mind” attitude that threatened to make the announcement a non-event in the U.S. media. First, HC determined that it in its announcement of the merger, it would position the combined firm as one poised to conquer the U.S. next, giving the story a strong domestic angle.
Second, following the announcement, HC would organize media tour for the law firm heads with key U.S. media in New York. The tour would not only keep news of the deal alive in the press, but allow the firm’s leadership to tell its story and be seen as true global leaders.
Results/Execution:
Leading up to the announcement, HC conducted extensive research to identify reporters and editors who would find the news interesting, particularly those who had written on Canadian or global firms looking to enter the U.S. market. The HC team also spent considerable time researching all three of the firms involved, so that it could fully explain the U.S. benefits of the deal to the media here.
Project X rolled out as scheduled, without any leaks to the media ahead of time. Laying the groundwork for the media tour two months later, HC pitched the merger news to great success. Articles appeared in The Wall Street Journal Law Blog, Bloomberg News, Law.com (two stories), Law360, the AmLaw Daily, and the ABA Journal.
After successfully generating placements on the merger itself, HC developed a media tour for the leaders of Norton Rose and Ogilvy Renault in New York with multiple reporters at the Wall Street Journal, as well as the managing editors and key reporters at two major legal publications in the U.S., American Lawyer magazine and the National Law Journal, and key electronic outlets Law360 and Above the Law.
Following the media tour, a fresh series of profiles ran in The American Lawyer, Legal Bisnow, and Law360. And as a result of introducing the Norton Rose CEO to the legal reporter at The Wall Street Journal, he was interviewed in that paper for a story on law firm compensation trends.
HC’s success led the firm to ask us to handle a subsequent merger announcement involving another Canadian firm. Meanwhile, the reporters who met with Norton Rose’s leadership have since jockeyed for position to be the first told of a U.S. partner. They’re anxiously awaiting what will be, thanks in part to HC, a very big story.