NFL Viewership Scored a 10% Gain in 2021. Should Your Law Firm Pay a Premium for It?
Like a group of weary hikers gathering around a campfire, Americans embraced the warm glow of NFL football in 2021 like never before. The crowds and sizzle were back. There was enough hot, delicious controversy to keep us all shaking our heads in disbelief. It was enough to warm the collective souls of America and distract us from a cold, sterile period of Covid seclusion.
But with the audience growth comes significant increases in ad costs. And NFL football was already priced at a premium, charging multiples of what most personal injury law firms pay for ads in regular programming. Is it worth paying the premium?
For most law firms, the answer is NO. Most personal injury law firms are advertising in highly competitive markets. The majority are badly outspent by the market’s leading law firm advertiser and don’t have the ad frequency to break through the clutter. Any available funds should be deployed to become more competitive in basic dayparts, Early Morning, Daytime, Early Fringe, Early News and weekends. Remember, the cost per rating point and cost per spot for Sports programming is multiples higher than normal programming. And NFL ads take the sports premium cost to a whole other level.
One tactic we use at BDAA to circumvent NFL premium pricing is buying low cost rotators on Weekends and in Prime. Our clients ads often end up in NFL games and other sports premium events at a fraction of the cost. One BDAA law firm client recently ran in the World Series for $150. The station was asking $40,000 per spot.
HIT 2022 LIKE A MACK TRUCK WITH THIS AD
Most people have no idea insurance companies send investigators to tractor trailer accident scenes to protect their financial interests. But this TV commercial exposes the practice in dramatic fashion and could be key to making your law firm’s 2022 one of the best years ever.
Turn the volume up as you view the ad. Note the custom musical scoring with nefarious tint. And the documentary feel, as if a curtain has been pulled back to reveal an insurance company practice never meant for public consumption.
Want to see the rest of the ad campaign? Email Brantley Davis BD@JBDAdAgency.com or call us at 202-775-8181. We’ll get your law firm trucking for 2022.
Law Firm Holiday Ads Put a Jingle in Your New Year. See for Yourself.
The same law firm TV ads that worked throughout the year can become laborious around the holidays when car crash messaging seems at odds with the spirit of the season. That’s why there’s no better time of year to add some holiday joy to your TV rotation. A fresh shot of localized commercials will add depth to your brand and bring a smile to your target market’s face. And that will make for a very prosperous new year.
Give your law firm the gift of gorgeous ads for 2022. Hire Brantley Davis Ad Agency. It’s the one gift that pays for itself! Contact us or give us a jingle at 202-775-8181.
Want to see more? Visit our Youtube page
Trial Lawyer Provision in Biden’s $2 Trillion Spending Package Could Be A Boon for Accident Victims
Last week the House passed President Biden’s $2 Trillion dollar spending package. According to The Wall Street Journal,
the bill contains a provision that could benefit plaintiffs and their attorneys if the bill passes the Senate and is signed into law.
“Trial lawyers got language that permits them to deduct certain expenses for cases taken on a contingency basis.”
Most plaintiff’s law firms already level the playing field for accident victims by charging no upfront costs and only charging clients a fee if they win the case. But the new provision could allow trial lawyers to take cases they may have rejected in the past.
Brantley Davis, President of Brantley Davis Ad Agency, a marketing firm specializing in law firm marketing, commented “If this bill becomes law, personal injury lawyers will accept more cases and that will pressure insurance companies to settle plaintiff's accident claims for more money. Good for accident victims and trial lawyers, but not good for insurance companies.”
The senate will take up the bill in coming weeks but the odds of it passing remain low as Senator Joe Manchin (D) WVA and Kyrsten Sinema (D) AZ continue to object to various aspects of the legislation.
A Truck Ad That Delivers for Personal Injury Lawyers and Average Americans
https://vimeo.com/639175158
Accidents involving tractor trailers can be some of the most devastating. It’s simple physics. When a truck weighing up to 80,000 pounds slams into a 3,000 lb car at sixty-five miles per hour, the results are typically tragic. That’s why within hours of a serious accident involving an eighteen wheeler, insurance companies will dispatch a team of highly trained investigators to the accident scene to search for evidence to protect the insurance company’s financial interests. But who protects the car accident victim’s interests? Americans earning average incomes don’t have the resources to send their own team of trained investigators to the accident scene. Besides, they’re most likely being treated for serious, life changing injuries. Fortunately, personal injury lawyers level the playing field for average Americans involved in big rig accidents. And that’s the point of this Brantley Davis Ad Agency truck ad.
The ad employs dramatic footage and customized music, stylized to create a nefarious mood at the start of the ad. Tension increases as the camera pans in on the undercarriage of an overturned eighteen wheeler, revealing a team of investigators videotaping the accident carnage and looking for clues to defend the insurance company against a claim. As the ad concludes, the music reaches a crescendo and stops as attorney Nelson Baez delivers the final line, “Because we look out for your interests, not the insurance company’s.”
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Personal Injury Lawyers. Balancing the Scales of Justice.
Let’s face it, the public is not fond of personal injury lawyers. You’ve heard the jokes. And some personal injury lawyers deserve ridicule, hanging around emergency rooms trolling for clients or handing out business cards at car accident scenes. But the fact is most personal injury lawyers have their clients best interest at heart and serve an essential purpose in our system of justice. Imagine life without personal injury attorneys. You can check my source here to get a lawyer and get help with injury cases. Who would keep greedy insurance companies from lowballing car accident victim’s claims just to please their Wall Street investors? Who would hold large corporations accountable when defective products like Talc cause cervical cancer in women? Who would take on callous employers that take advantage of workers injured on the job? And who would stand up for children harmed by negligent landlords that exposed kids to toxic levels of lead paint?
The fact is, without personal injury lawyers, working class Americans would have nowhere to turn when large corporate entities with endless resources take advantage of them. Personal injury lawyers should be proud of what they do. They balance the scales of justice for average Americans.
To Jingle or Not to Jingle? That IS the Question
Shakespeare’s Hamlet was contemplating life versus death when he pondered “to be or not to be.” Ironically, many attorneys would choose the latter before creating a jingle for their law firm. But history and science argue in favor of jingles. Studies show that music stimulates the cerebellum and limbic system more profoundly than mere words. That’s because music triggers the brain’s pleasure centers, releasing dopamine making us feel happy. Combine a catchy tune with the warm familiarity of the same jingle repeated hundreds of times per week in TV ads, and a brand suddenly becomes very “sticky.” But that should come as no surprise. The world’s most powerful brands have relied on jingles to help them break through for decades. Remember Oscar Meyer’s “my bologna has a first name, it’s O-S-C-A-R” and Alka Seltzer’s, “Plop plop, fizz fizz, oh what a relief it is.” Even PI law firms have relied on jingles. Cellino & Barnes rode their throwback jingle sound to unrivaled success, becoming so well known, Saturday Night Live parodied them in skits. However, jingles don’t have to sound like they were created in the 1950s to be effective. Contemporary jingles break through too. And isn’t breaking through what it’s all about? Which brings us to this: To jingle or not to jingle. It’s a question only you can answer.
Mooney Law
Jingle plays off “Money, Money, Money”. Unprompted, consumers sing the jingle to Mooney attorneys.
Hawk Law
Client told us to make this jingle break through. Actor concurred, brand took flight.
Loyalty Automotive
Check out the music that's driving this mega car dealer's growth.
Custom Music
Country music created in Nashville. Pushed recycling rates up across the U.S.
Humor in Personal Injury Lawyers Ads? Seriously?
For the most part, lawyer TV ads are serious and formulaic. Most still talk about how long a law firm has been around, reputation, academic background and pedigree. The ads haven’t changed much in thirty years. And humor in lawyer ads is essentially taboo. Which could be a big mistake. Consider insurance company ads from Geico, Liberty Mutual, All State. Not only do these sophisticated marketers perpetually use humor in their ads despite addressing a serious subject, they even make light of accidents. Think All State’s “Mayhem” character shown in various accident scenarios. You may contend they can get away with it because insurance companies are selling policies before the accident occurs while PI attorneys are signing up clients after the accident when victims are in a different state of mind. But based on empirical evidence, Brantley Davis Ad Agency disagrees.
Ten years ago, a brand new PI law firm in the South hired us to put them on the map. They were unknown and as a new firm did not have the resources to match competitors TV spend. Our TV ads and marketing had to work twice as hard. So we decided to try humorous ads. And fortunately, humor delivered serious results. Calls and cases climbed. Affection for the brand grew. Attorneys at the firm could feel the brand energy in the market, in their neighborhoods, everywhere they went. And to their credit pushed us, the ad agency, to take the humor level up even higher. We laughed. It was a blast. Case growth picked up even more. Today, the law firm has expanded from one market to three and is one of the largest, most successful firms in the state. And they’re still running our funny ads.
So, why did humor work? Because the ads brought a smile to our target market’s face and they grew to love the brand. They didn’t really care about the traditional law firm Unique Selling Propositions. They just wanted a likable lawyer. And were sold on our client’s law firm before even getting into an accident.
Additionally, because the ads were fun and different, they broke through the clutter, putting less pressure on media budgets. The creative simply worked harder.
So, the next time your ad agency asks you to consider injecting a little humor into your law firm ads, take them seriously. The results just may put a smile on your face.
Personal Injury Law Firm Web Design: Think Mobile First. It’s The Right Call
A new law firm client recently asked us to take a look at their re-designed website. They’d partnered with a well known, relatively expensive web company. And indeed, the website looked good. Design was clean and crisp, visuals were alluring. Everyone seemed pleased. Until a Brantley Davis Digital account executive pulled the site up on mobile. Unfortunately, the site looked atrocious: no shot of the attorney featured in the TV ads; no “Free case review;” no phone number, just lots of words. And this site was created by a purported digital leader in PI law firm design. The client was mystified and perturbed, as they should be.
Because research shows that lower income Americans use mobile for online access at much higher rates than more affluent people. Many don’t even have PCs. And as we all know, folks from lower socioeconomic backgrounds are much more likely to call a PI attorney after an accident. If you have any doubts about mobile use, studies abound on the web. Here’s one from Pew Research Center https://www.pewinternet.org/
“Reliance on smartphones for online access is especially common among younger adults, non-whites and lower-income Americans.”
Pew Research Center 2019
At Brantley Davis Ad Agency, we’ve seen this play out in PI lawyer PPC campaigns for years. The exact percentages vary market to market, but typically our Google analytics show 70%-80% of all personal injury PPC clicks and conversions are generated through mobile devices.
Why do professionals who design PI lawyer websites often marginalize mobile design? The answer is probably quite simple. They design on a massive PC all day. Designers fall in love with the gorgeous visuals spanning the full width of their 24” Mac screens forgetting that a mobile screen is what drives calls and cases.
So the next time you redesign your website or create a landing page for a mass tort, think mobile first. It’s the right call.
Coronavirus Cut TV Rates Up to 50%. Keeping Rates Low Is Key to Higher Profitability
The Coronavirus wreaked havoc on businesses across America, including PI law firms. Auto traffic plummeted by 90% in some cities and so did car accident cases. Several law firm analysts even contended cases signed during the pandemic would be worth less because of victims’ limited ability to receive medical treatment. But there was a silver lining. Though TV viewing exploded as people were trapped in their houses, Brantley Davis negotiated sharply lower TV ad rates in April and May of 2020. Up to 50% lower. In addition, we were also able to negotiate 2 for 1 bonus spots. And the bonus spots weren't just airing 12 midnight to 6am. 95% were running 6a-12m. We know because we were checking post logs weekly. And the lower rates and hundreds of bonus spots paid off. Law firm call traffic started to pick up and so did cases. As important, cost per case decreased in some markets during the height of the pandemic.
So, how can PI law firms hold onto lower TV rates as political campaigns kick into gear and retailers begin buying up TV inventory again, driving up rates? That’s the big question. Think about it. If your TV costs are 25% lower, your firm’s cost per case would theoretically be 25% lower and profitability would increase exponentially.
The answer to keeping rates low and no charges airing is relatively simple. But it is labor intensive and requires adept negotiating skills. Like to know more? Call Brantley Davis at 202-775-8181 or email bd@jbdadagency.com. Brantley works with some of the nation’s leading PI law firms and has been developing successful law firm media strategies for almost thirty years. He’d love to learn more about your firm and help make it more profitable.
P.S. Ask about our free competitive market analysis. You may be surprised by the tactics your competitors are employing.