The struggle to be different

Boosterism and law firm marketing ... Buffing the image with hype and lofty, but empty, messages ... The challenge of global positioning ... Alix Piatek reports 

It's a new world at King & Wood Mallesons

THE branding and marketing gurus have been working overtime applying spit and polish to newly cobbled together global law shops. 

Small fortunes are being outlaid for dinkuses, slogans, positioning-lines, skite-blurbs, graphics and web design - all part of an unfailing commitment to boosterism. 

The big Chinese shop King & Wood Mallesons now has a tag-line that says: "We believe in the power of together ... A power that creates real value." 

The firm's video emphasis the power of together, with hapless solicitors, associates and partners trying their best to look excited about being global. 

There's also a King & Wood Mallesons Instagram page, where the pictorial history of fun times is there to behold.  

Herbert Smith Freehills has settled for the tagline: "Your eyes everywhere." 

It's not actually your eyes everywhere, it's HSF's eyes everywhere on your behalf - but it was a bit clunky to say that. 

Instead, the "global campus" branders came up with three additional sight-related positioning lines: "Lawyers who see more … We see the road ahead [and] Do you share our view?" 

The new circular logo represents the iris of an eye. London based creative consultancy SAS collected a small fortune for this work, which included implementing two colour palettes, "based around aqua and fuchsia". 

In this environment Baker & McKenzie, which has always been global, had to stake a superior claim.

It came up with: "We are passionately global - it's in our DNA." 

Beat that. 

Allens > < Linklaters doesn't seem to have a branding slogan, opting instead for five "values": "excellence, integrity, respect, performance, [and] one firm." 

Even though "one firm" might have difficulty qualifying as a "value", Allens insists that these are not just "warm words. They do not "live on a poster" - in fact, they are the product of a staff survey, which distilled the values that are being lived "in a day-to-day basis". 

Befitting Allens values-based approach it's YouTube channel is sober - e.g. glamorous partners earnestly discussing oil and gas projects. 

Middletons has also scrambled aboard the global life-raft and transmogrified into K&L Gates, with a full page spread in today's (April 4, 2013) Financial Review (at least on the iPad) declaring that it can, "now address clients' most challenging legal issues with the resources of over 2,000 lawyers in 48 fully integrated offices across five continents". 

And the positioning line? "Straight talking on a global scale", while the Gates' site boasts, "We've got Australia covered".  

Clayton Utz has saddled-up with some global networks, Lex Mundi and the Pacific Rimmers - so it rightly calls itself an "international" firm. 

We searched, but couldn't find any fetching one-liners from the Clutz marketers, instead, it claims bragging rights to the first law firm iPhone app (PocketCU) and the most Facebook followers (2,495) of any law shop in the wide, brown land - because "people like us!" 

Like Minter Ellison and Gilbert + Tobin, Corrs Chambers Westgarth soldiers on without a positioning line but, as with Allens, is guided by "important values" - although it doesn't spell them out. 

"[Values] help us focus on what is essential for success. They help us create an energetic and exciting environment in which our people are motivated and challenged to do their best. We like to think of Corrs as a place with open doors, where any person can feel free to ask questions or talk through an issue." 

The increasing use of Chinese or Japanese characters on the sites of the bigger shops reassures us that that they are part of the "Asian Century". 

Slater & Gordon has gone for the "hakuna matata" strategy with the strap-line, "Not a problem" (except when the Keddies boys were on-board).  

Maurice Blackburn engaged someone with English as a fifth language to come up with the challenging phrase: "We fight for fair." 

Those four randomly ordered words are now a registered trademark. 

I'm sure there are other bits of marketing boosterism that need our attention. Let us know if you spot something worthy of mention. 

[Sadly, now we find that a lot of those positioning lines have vanished ... Maybe no one believed them in the first place - Ed. August 8, 2022] 

Alix Piatek