“Professionals must…understand their audience’s needs, choose the right moment to communicate, and craft compelling messages that resonate on an emotional level.”

It’s supremely ironic that the joyous holiday of Purim, which commemorates the deliverance of the Jewish people from the evil plot of Haman to destroy them, will this year be celebrated while the Jewish state of Israel and the US are at war to free prosecuted persians — and the world — from the  oppressive, anti-Western, evil, theocratic, authoritarian Iranian regime.

Under normal circumstances, Purim is a festive holiday celebrated by revelry, feasting, gift and charity giving and, of course, reading the Megillah (the Book of Esther). Beyond its historical and religious significance, the holiday and its legends may surprise modern marketers with how easily each element of the story maps onto key principles of effective communication strategy and leadership, making it surprisingly relevant for professionals navigating the complexities of today’s fast-paced world. Consider:

Esther’s Rise: The Importance of Reputation Management

Esther’s ascent to the throne exemplifies the significance of reputation management. Her grace, wisdom, and humility wins her favor in the eyes of the king and those around her (Esther 2:15-17). In a professional context, managing your reputation by building trust through consistent results and positive behavior is crucial for long-term success. For example, consider a young lawyer who consistently demonstrates integrity, professionalism, and empathy in her interactions, while always delivering above expectations. Over time, her reputation for excellence and compassion will attract clients and offer numerous opportunities for success and advancement.

Esther’s Jewish “Reveal”: A Critical Rebranding

Esther’s revelation of her Jewish identity to the king at a critical juncture (Esther 7:3-6) could very easily be called a “strategic rebranding.” She carefully chooses the right moment to disclose this information, which ultimately saves her people. Similarly, professionals must know when to pivot or reveal key aspects of their brand to achieve desired outcomes. Imagine a tech company that decides to pivot its brand focus towards sustainability. This carefully planned rebranding might be executed at a key industry conference, leading to increased market share and positive public perception.

Esther’s Integrity: The Importance of Brand Integrity

Esther’s unwavering integrity — even in challenging situations — is central to her success. For professionals, maintaining brand integrity is essential for building trust and credibility with clients and stakeholders. A professional firm that consistently upholds ethical standards and transparent communication builds a strong reputation, attracting clients who value trust and reliability.

Esther’s Maidens: The Critical Role of Allies

Esther does not act alone. She has the critical support of her maidens (Esther 2:9, 4:16), highlighting the importance of allies in effective communications campaigns. By leveraging their networks and expertise to ensure an initiative’s success, building a network of allies who support and enhance your initiatives is vital for achieving goals.

Esther’s Banquet Strategy: The Power of Community Engagement

Esther’s use of banquets to engage key stakeholders is a lesson in community engagement (Esther 5:4-8, 7:1-10). By creating a setting that facilitated dialogue and decision-making, Esther saves her people. Professionals can learn from this by creating platforms for engagement that foster meaningful interactions with their clients and prospects. For instance, a lawyer might host a series of workshops on new regulations affecting space exploration for private equity investors, creating an environment where community members feel valued and heard, leading to stronger client relationships and community trust.

Esther’s Appeal to the King: Audience Analysis, Timing, & Messaging

Esther’s appeal to the king to save her people is marked by careful audience analysis, perfect timing, and clear, emotionally resonant messaging (Esther 7:3-6). Professionals must similarly understand their audience’s needs, choose the right moment to communicate, and craft compelling messages that resonate on an emotional level.

Mordecai’s Counsel: Importance of Advisors

Mordecai’s wise counsel to Esther throughout the story highlights the importance of trusted advisors (Esther 4:13-14). In the professional realm, seeking advice from experienced mentors or colleagues can provide valuable perspectives and guidance to both handle complex matters as they arise and to help shape a successful career more generally. 

Mordecai’s Information: Importance of Market Research

Mordecai gathers information about Haman’s plot (Esther 2:21-23, 4:7-8) underscoring the importance of market research. Before doing anything — launching a new practice, hiring a new colleague, investing in a prospect to try and convert them into a client —  understanding the market landscape and gathering intelligence is crucial for developing effective strategies.

Mordecai’s Being Understated and Unassuming: Power of Imagery & Design

Mordecai’s modesty and refusal to bow to Haman (Esther 3:2-6) demonstrate the power of imagery and personal branding. In a professional setting, how one presents oneself can significantly impact an audience’s perceptions and your interactions. A professional might cultivate a brand of quiet confidence and competence, without resorting to boastfulness, in order to stand out in a crowded field.

Haman’s Evil: Necessity of an Enemy or Opposite

Haman’s role as the antagonist in the story illustrates the necessity of having a clear market differentiator or competitor. In business, understanding your competitors and differentiating yourself from them is essential for standing out in the market.  Interestingly (for those still reading), in researching this article I learned that Kabbalah (ancient Jewish mysticism) teaches that incense needs one sour part to more fully bring out its inherent sweetness.

Haman’s Execution: Using Social Media to Market the Win

Albeit with a little imagination, the public downfall of Haman (Esther 7:9-10) can be likened to using social media to market a win. In today’s digital age, sharing successes and achievements through the vast networks of interested parties available via social channels can absolutely enhance a professional’s or organization’s visibility and reputation. Equally true is the opposite, in this day and age, mishandling your relationships and social networks can for your reputation be the equivalent of a noose around your neck. 

The story of Esther is a rich tapestry of lessons in effective communication that are highly applicable to professionals. By embracing these principles, professionals can build strong, lucrative, professional relationships and navigate complex situations to achieve their goals with grace, integrity and wisdom, just like Esther.

By John Hellerman, President & Founder, Hellerman Communications

“What’s eroding isn’t just coverage — it’s institutional capacity, and that has direct implications for how authority is earned, validated, and sustained.”

In a stunning blow to legacy media, The Washington Post announced on February 4, 2026, that it would lay off roughly one-third of its workforce, including more than 300 journalists. Insiders described the cuts as an “absolute bloodbath,” wiping out sports, books, international bureaus, and large swaths of local coverage.

For law firms, this may initially feel remote. High-stakes legal thought leadership rarely depends on metro desks or lifestyle sections. But focusing on what was cut misses the larger signal. What’s eroding isn’t just coverage — it’s institutional capacity, and that has direct implications for how authority is earned, validated, and sustained.

The value of placements in elite publications undeniably persists. A quote or op-ed in a top-tier outlet still signals credibility to sophisticated clients, peers, and referral sources. In an era of relentless content and algorithmic noise, these legacy badges continue to convey seriousness and selectivity — forms of gravitas most “new media” platforms still struggle to replicate.

But value and accessibility are now diverging.

Prestige outlets increasingly resemble venture capital firms: highly selective, asymmetric, and disproportionately rewarding to those who already have momentum. Fewer reporters, narrower beats, and higher editorial thresholds mean that generic commentary and incremental insight are no longer merely inefficient, they’re invisible.

This creates an uncomfortable reality for legal marketers: the payoff of top-tier media may be increasing at the exact moment the odds of securing it are declining.

The response should not be abandonment, nor panic diversification into every new podcast or newsletter. It should be strategic rebalancing:

— Legacy media should be repositioned as capstone validation, not the foundational narrative.

— Authority should be built upstream through proprietary research, client-driven insight, forums, and relevant digital platforms where firms control both depth and context.

— Only then should legacy placements be deployed to punctuate and authenticate that work — as the mic-drop, not the monologue.

Firms that rely on a single quote to carry the weight of an entire narrative will increasingly find themselves exposed.

The deeper question law-firm leaders should be asking is this: If the institutions we once relied on to confer authority are contracting, where — and how — are we deliberately building it instead?

In that sense, the Post’s cuts are not merely a media tragedy. They are a preview of tomorrow’s authority landscape.

By John Hellerman, President & Founder, Hellerman Communications

See John’s posts summarizing this article on X and LinkedIn.

Super Bowl advertisements are the most anticipated ads all year. In 2018, they cost $5M per one 30 second spot. That’s a lot of moola, so we wanted to comment on the three that resonated the most (for good or ill):

#1. Tide

The best advertising investment of the night (and maybe of all time).

The best advertising investment of the night (and maybe of all time). Not only did Tide score with their choice of David Harbour, America’s favorite from Stranger Things, as pitchman, the company’s “every ad is a Tide ad” brilliantly trolled every other brand’s ad to gain a share of mind from all of the advertising. (It’s still working on me – I see actors in clean clothes for a Toyota dealership commercial and a part of me thinks, I wonder if they actually did use Tide?)

#2. Winter Olympics Best of the U.S. with Lindsey Vonn

I had goosebumps. Talk about engaging…NBC Sports had my entire family on the edge of our seats as they captured gold medalist skier Lindsey Vonn’s story with just the right amount of inspiration, struggle, grit, triumph and pride. It’s a good lesson on the power of visual communications.

#3. Ram Trucks

I felt sad. The minute Ram started quoting Martin Luther King, Jr. about service, I knew Twitter was going to light up. In the hyper-sensitized era we live in today, appropriating MLK for commercial benefit was not going to fly, and Ram should have known better. Worse still, the company only used a small, self-serving piece of MLK’s original sermon. Ironically, the full sermon is anti-consumerism and anti-advertising. For instance, speaking of the instinct to want to be part of a group – the “Drum Major Instinct” he called it – a portion of the sermon reads:

“Now the presence of this instinct explains why we are so often taken by advertisers. You know, those gentlemen of massive verbal persuasion. And they have a way of saying things to you that kind of gets you into buying. In order to be a man of distinction, you must drink this whiskey. In order to make your neighbors envious, you must drive this type of car…And you know, before you know it, you’re just buying that stuff. (Yes) That’s the way the advertisers do it.”

In reality, if they were really sincere, Ram could have spent their ad buy money on a program benefiting minorities, and as a result, received much better coverage promoting their trucks via that initiative.

Kathy Griffin is a D-list celebrity for a reason — primarily because she isn’t very funny. But her press conference today to blame her self-inflicted wounds on Trump (her victim) and old white men was the funniest piece of performance art I’ve ever seen.

You could say Kathy Griffin gave them her head on a platter.

First, given the politics of this issue, I want to be clear on mine: Kathy Griffin can produce whatever art she wants. And if Donald Trump or anyone else has a critique of her art or of her as the artist producing it, they’re also free to express themselves. If such personal expressions appear to break the law, they should be investigated. Finally, if Ms. Griffin’s employers want nothing to do with her because of her poor judgement and tastelessness, that’s up to them.

The problem with Griffin’s artistic expression was not just that her art, in this case, was tasteless and grotesque (and apparently traumatizing to Trump’s 10-year-old son). Instead, the problem was Griffin’s strategic blunders: she misread her audience and delivered her message, like her jokes, without any sense of timing.

Griffin’s antics are not a diversion for Trump; his supporters would have jumped on her no matter how tame her mockery of the President. But in this current heated news and entertainment atmosphere — with Colbert’s controversial comments and numerous anonymously-sourced stories aimed to hurt the administration swirling about — Griffin was the perfect diversion for Hollywood and the media: a leftist villain to tear down and destroy in order to disprove the right’s frequent claims of their hypocrisy and bias.

You could say Kathy Griffin gave them her head on a platter.

Hellerman Communications, formerly Hellerman Baretz Communications, achieved a pair of major milestones this week when it was named “Best PR Firm for Law Firms” for the fifth year running and “Best Crisis Management Firm” for the third year in a row in the annual Best of Legal Times survey, a project in which the National Law Journal and Legal Times ask the legal community to identify its finest service providers.

The agency also placed third in the “Best Social Media Consultant” category. On the announcement of the results, Hellerman Communications’ founder John Hellerman said: “It’s an honor to receive this support and recognition from the Legal Times and its readers. I’d like to thank our clients and congratulate the other winners.”