Legal Marketing & PR

Bingham Runs an ad in Yes, The New Yorker

By Larry Bodine

There among the articles discussing the newest plays on Broadway and the deep thoughts of intellectuals in a recent New Yorker magazine was, yes, a full-page ad from Bingham.  It depicted a flock of flying manta rays, crocodiles, an elephant, ostriches and geese winging their way across an empty sky.

The ad promoted, "Diversity elevates everyone's talents" and highlighted bingham.com.

"Bingham's target audience is high-level decision-makers in global financial services organizations and Fortune 100 executives. The New Yorker premium brand was appealing to us, and the response has been outstanding," said press contact Claire M. Papanastasiou.

Here's a link to an item chronicling the firm's  journey from a 200-lawyer regional firm to a 1,100-lawyer global enterprise, www.bingham.com/Page.aspx?PageID=4

Why pick the sophisticated readership of the New Yorker as opposed to another magazine?

"Bingham always aspires to lead the legal industry in adopting creative and strategic approaches to advertising. Thus, our ad in The New Yorker reflects our larger, more comprehensive strategy to reinforce our firm's profile across our targeted demographics. In addition to The New Yorker, we advertise in other national and global publications — both the print and online versions, which do an excellent job of reaching those targets. However, because media are ever-evolving, we are constantly looking at high-visibility publications that provide a "pop." The New Yorker is well known for its cutting-edge, award-winning editorial and intellectual audience. The publication carries advertising from top-tier global businesses and B2B advertisers, and it made great sense for us to be in that same space," she said.

Why promote diversity, as opposed to the firm's size, worldwide reach or results?

"The ad aspires to capture a theme in one frame and with minimal words. At Bingham, our commitment to diversity and inclusion is all about harmonizing and harnessing talents, abilities, strengths no matter what the differences, and in many instances, history and previous tensions," she said. "We believe that the ad achieves this message in allegorical form, while reaffirming the global Bingham brand."

Don Easdon, the firm's creative director, designed the ad.  The in-house marketing and branding teams did the internal and internal testing. No ad agency was used.

Our clients and internal constituents have reacted very favorably to the 'Flock' ad, commenting on the power of integrated practice teams as well as the benefits of a broader diversity program," she said.

Full post as published by Larry Bodine's LawMarketing Blog on May 23, 2010 (boomark / email).