Once you decide on on the direction of your brand, never forget it and never deviate from it. I noticed two recent examples of brand deviation or destruction by major corporations.

Recently, Domino’s announced that (after 40 years) they discovered their pizza wasn’t good! Can you imagine that? So they reinvented their pizza and recent advertising has focused on nothing but how proud they are of their new taste.

Domino’s became a $1.4 billion company with bad pizza because they hit on a great niche with a great brand slogan “30 minutes or it’s free”. Apparently, their customers liked bad pizza, never cared and/or just wanted fast delivery. Now, they abandoned their brand and have to compete on taste. But after trying it yesterday, I don’t think that’s going to be successful.

New Year’s Eve was Tavern on the Green’s last night for dinner under its current ownership. Now, after a fight for ownership rights of the brand, a Manhattan federal judge will decide who gets to keep the name Tavern on the Green, valued at $19 million. That makes the brand worth 50% of annual gross receipts of $38 million. ^{1 2}

While a name like Tavern on the Green has tremendous value as a brand that draws people to the restaurant, lawyers are in a different situation with two distinct differences.

First, a lawyer’s name cannot be sold with the law practice because of the prohibition, in most states, of using another lawyer’s name who is not practicing in the law firm. If a lawyer’s name is branded, it becomes a brand with substantial value that cannot be realized upon the sale of the law practice.

Brand fraud online is increasing and law firms are not immune.

CMO COUNCIL reported that “A global audit of 306 marketers, sponsored by MarkMonitor, a leading provider of solutions for enterprise brand protection, found that trademark trespassing is moving increasingly online, and fraud is becoming more difficult to identify due to the increased sophistication of brand hijackers.”

For quite a while, e-mails have circulated which purport to come from a law firm or in some illegal way use the name of a law firm to perpetuate a fraudulent scheme. A search on Google came up with a myriad of complaints about schemes involving the name of a law firm.

When there is little competition, business is easy and brute force advertising, using lots of money, works. But, when the going gets tough, brute force is destined for failure.

When the competition intensifies, differentiation decides success or failure. A few large companies may survive by increasing brute force, but most will fail. Companies that differentiate themselves and their service or their products will not only survive, but will succeed.

When the first IBM PC came on the market, there was little competition and IBM had the funds for brute force advertising. When the competition got tough years later, brute force advertising stopped working and instead of differentiating their product, IBM simply pulled out of the PC market.

Yesterday, Imus was interviewing George Carlin on MSNBC. Joking about some future catastrophe, George Carlin said he expected to wake up some morning and see it on CNN. He could’ve said that he would expect to see it on MSNBC, especially since he was appearing on MSNBC, but he said he would expect to see it on CNN because CNN is the dominant brand in his mind.

Today, I received a joke by e-mail which referred to a journalist investigating a news report, however the joke didn’t just state that a journalist was investigating this report. It stated that the journalist was from CNN. What was the point of stating that the journalist was a CNN journalist? There wasn’t any, except for the possibility of the joke writer intending to elevate the status of the journalist, indicating a more serious matter that was being investigated. Whatever the reason was, or even if there was no reason, CNN was only mentioned because it is the dominant brand in the joke writer’s mind.

The latest in lawyer advertising on TV brings together two giant companies in a joint advertising effort and they’re not even lawyers. I just saw, this Saturday morning on WNBC TV4 New York, a TV commercial co-branded for both FindLaw.com and NBC.com. FindLaw.com is owned by West Publishing Corporation which is owned by Thomson Corporation, which I believe is the largest publisher in North America. Of course, everyone knows who NBC is. The TV commercial, which is the first one of its kind that I have seen, advised that if you need a lawyer you can go to FindLaw.com which is available at NBC.com. The TV commercial displayed the graphics of both company logos with FindLaw.com above the NBC logo.

Cobranding or cross promotion is a relationship between two different companies to share advertising. Cobranding occurs with all types of media, from TV to web sites. While cobranding is not uncommon, I have not previously seen cobranding in lawyer advertising.

You’re considering lawyer advertising on TV, but you’re afraid your law firm can’t compete. You’re probably thinking that you can only afford somewhere between $5,000 and $15,000 per month, but there are two or three law firms each spending $200,000 per month on advertising, monopolizing your market. With the public seeing your competitors’ commercials all day long, can you successfully compete and ensure that your money will not be wasted?

One lawyer I know was doing just that. In a small TV market where three law firms were spending a total of over $5 million a year in advertising, he took a chance on TV using TV commercials made for free by the TV station and advertising his local office telephone number. After two months he didn’t receive even one call and decided to try using a vanity phone number. After looking on the Internet, he found 1-800-HURT-911® which provided him with high-quality TV commercials in addition to the 1-800 vanity phone number. After advertising 1-800-HURT-911, he saw immediate results with a monthly advertising budget of only $4,200 and is now successfully advertising. He began advertising 1-800-HURT-911 on billboards, radio and giveaways. Now he is interested in adding two more TV markets to his advertising campaign.

Advertising for lawyers, particularly law firms providing services to individuals, is usually direct response advertising which presents different advertising issues than those seen in traditional TV brand advertising.

A recent TV commercial for Lexus focuses on its rotating headlight which rotates 15 degrees in either direction, left or right, following direction of the steering wheel. This could have been a great commercial except one key ingredient is missing. This is a brand commercial which mentions only the headlight and has forgotten the importance of branding Lexus’ image of luxury. The Lexus web site states “No matter where you travel, take your luxury accommodations with you.” Luxury is the image Lexis has chosen for its brand. The image must be accomplished in every portrayal of the brand. In pure brand commercials such as for Lexus, a commercial can highlight an important feature, however, the feature should tie into one single overall branding scheme. In the Lexus TV commercial, the advanced headlight system should be portrayed as the newest feature in luxury accommodations. This consistent branding scheme establishes Lexis as the leader in automobile luxury.

What is branding? Branding is an attempt to evoke an image that is retained in the mind of the target audience by use of a memorable symbol or name. Why create a brand? Would Yahoo or Google be where they are today if they chose a generic name like “Best Search Engine”? I don’t think so!

A brand capable of graphic representation can be protected by registering as a trademark or servicemark. A trademark or servicemark can be claimed under common law simply by using a TM or SM with the mark. Greater protection can be had by registering with the U.S Patent & Trademark Office. Upon acceptance of the registration, the brand can be shown with an R in a circle.