Smith & Stallworth

Legal marketing can be quite challenging. For one thing, lawyer advertising is closely regulated by each state’s respective Bar Association. Without going into excessive detail, many of the concepts and much of the language you might typically employ in marketing messages is forbidden in legal advertising. All copy must be submitted to the Bar for approval and they have no problem responding with a long list of revisions to be implemented before they will give their blessing to run the ad.

The regulatory hurdles are just one of the factors that contribute to the general lack of quality you see in lawyer advertising. The other problem is that attorneys, like most business owners, tend model their advertising efforts after those of their peers. Ever wonder why so many legal advertisements feature a lawyer sitting in front of a bunch of law books? Because that’s what everyone else does. Ever wonder why lawyers all talk about how “aggressive” they are or how many years of “experience” they have? Because that’s what everyone else does. And don’t get us started on production quality; how many times have you seen attorney commercials that look like they were shot on a cheap VHS camcorder? If that’s what everyone else does it must be sufficient right?

Differentiation is a key component of a successful marketing campaign. In many cases it can be difficult to find new ways to truly carve out a unique position for a particular business. But sometimes, you can make quite a statement by just looking around at what all your competitors are doing and exploiting an obvious weakness.

The law firm of Smith and Stallworth is one of Tampa Florida’s newest and fastest growing law firms. Courtney Smith and Mark Stallworth are not only outstanding attorneys, but all-around great guys as well. Here’s a sample of the TV creative we recently developed as the first part of a comprehensive campaign to introduce them to their home market.