Basics of Branding Attorney Services
Branding is all about recognition of a particular item or service. Some products are readily distinguishable, but others are not. Unique products and services are relatively ease to brand. If the service or product never existed it is easy to invent a new word to describe it and it shall became equal to an everyday word. This can be very advantageous to the organization that is first to market, but it can also be the biggest problem or concern that should be addressed early on. When you are first to market on a new service or product you can name it almost anything you want and chances are that you will be very successful. The reason is that if noone has done it before then there is no reason to use anything else but what you call it. It is not much different than inventing new words to describe industry peculiar procedures. Among attorneys the terms CMC, OSC, and rogs mean quite a bit. To the common man, it means nothing. The same is true of more universal known and accepted goods and services. For example take the word internet, we all know exactly what it means, and if only company in the world offered such a service it would be deemed to have been a very successful branding strategy. In reality it is not so much of a strategy, but more of being first to market. Someone must have come with the idea and someone came up with a name to describe that thing and now everyone knows what it means. Clearly that are variations when you translate from one language to another, but nonetheless it is still the same name brand. In business there is always a race to get to market first for this very first reason. The first to market will dominate and it is because of branding. The words become permanent and part of our everyday life. We all use words such as Kleenex and coke to refer to that particular good regardless of whether we even intend to mean that particular brand. The reason is that they were first to market. When you are first to market you get to rule. The problem is you have to work hard to protect your brand name. The brand can be so successful that it starts to take on a generic meaning instead of the brand meaning. That is why it is important to start a strategy early on for your run away success. Maybe the success will never come, but it is always better to be prepared for an opportunity and not have an opportunity than to have an opportunity and not be prepared for the opportunity.
The true challenge in branding comes with goods and services that are well established and with goods and services that are deemed to be commodities. The challenge in branding commodities is that either the good or service is interchangeable or the prospective buyer or consumer does not know enough to make a distinction between one good or service. One example would be a personal injury attorney, a wrongful death attorney, a criminal defense attorney, a living trust attorney, a CPA, an accountant, or perhaps a soils engineer. How can you draw a distinction between one and another. You need a personal injury attorney, a wrongful death attorney, or a CPA, or other professional, because you don't know what the service entails. If you could prepare your own tax returns or litigate your own wrongful death claim, you would not need an attorney or CPA, would you ? This why it would be difficult to brand such services. Consumers don't know how to distinguish one from the other, but this same type of a challenge also presents opportunities. One very successful attorney was either extremely intelligent or fortunate in branding himself by using the characteristics that resonates with consumers. Specifically the attorney was very fortunate in hiring an exceptional marketing company or he must extremely brilliant. What he did was to look at what consumers rely on to distinguish from one attorney to another. It was not that it matters, it is not that it is relevant, or even that it helps consumers in any way. Consumers don't know what is in their best interest they rely on what we can only describe as irrational or perhaps even idiotic. The significance of understanding consumers regardless of how irrational the process maybe is that their irrational behavior can be the deciding factor on how to proceeding with a branding strategy on goods and services that would otherwise be deemed as commodities. Returning to our brilliant attorney, the branding strategy focused exactly on this as a seemingly irrational idea, but an idea that worked very well. Specifically he promised he would "fight for you." Larry H. Parker, became synonimous with "I will fight for you." Unfortunately for him, he has more recently started to loose his way and started using other expressions. For some unknown reason he has started to shoot himself on the foot. Nonetheless he was absolutely brilliant in pursuing such a branding strategy. He was not telling consumers, I am the best, I can totally kick ass, or anything that we would think consumers would want to hear, but rather a very simply promise. A promise that means almost nothing. What is the extent of the fighting ? Is it just a counter offer where the attorney says I want more ? Not much of a promise if you think of it logically, but one that worked very well. Consumers have no understanding of the legal system, as great democracy as we claim to be, our standards are really low when a consumer will be happy to hire one attorney over another on the sole basis that the attorney will fight for you. The fact is that all attorneys will fight for you, but some are clearly better than others and some are really good at distinguishing themselves. Less successful branding strategies revolve around name recognition. You think of something and you immediately associate the service or product with the name, but it does necessarily mean you are going to buy the name brand. The reason is that the these goods or services are really commodities or very close to it. It becomes a matter of distinguishing the goods or services from other commodities. Would purchase a Chiquita banana for 50% than another banana. I suspect you would look at the banana and then choose the one that is cheaper, unless the cheaper ones are clearly deteriorated or inferior.