What £15 million of marketing spend has bought QualitySolicitors

When QualitySolicitors (QS) announced that they were to spend £15 million on advertising, and had hired Saatchi & Saatchi to help, it made a lot of lawyers sit up and take notice.  UK lawyers have traditionally taken a fairly low-key approach to advertising, and it is extremely rare to see prime time television ads outside of the realms of personal injury claims.  Opinions were divided on whether the QS approach was a sign of things to come for the industry, or a monumental waste of money.  Well, it is far too early to say whether the £15 million was money well spent, but we can now see the advert they have come up with, as it is available on You Tube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4knygiE7aAE&feature=youtu.be . 

I have to say, I like it.  Designed to work alongside the firm’s “For Whatever Life Brings” strap-line, the ad is fairly subtle and understated, showing people in a variety of life-changing situations where they are likely to need a lawyer. 

The sound-track to the advert (Jimmy Cliff's 'Hard Road To Travel') is wonderful and soulful, and I can see singer Rachel K Collier having a hit with it as a consequence of the exposure.  But most importantly, a great sound-track means people are likely to stick with what is otherwise a fairly long (90 second) advert.  It’s a million miles away from the brash “Have you been injured at work?” adverts we are used to seeing, with loud presenters endlessly repeating phone numbers to call, and seems to be aimed at a somewhat more sophisticated audience.   I think most of the public are likely to respond positively to it - somehow the aggressively commercial approach to television legal advertising up to now has always seemed to jar somewhat with the values of professionalism and integrity that most of the public want from their lawyers.  The QS ad seems to strike a good balance.  In fact, if there is any criticism of the advert that I have, it is that the actual promotion of QS's name is perhaps a tad too subtle – coming only right at the end, and in a very under-stated way. 

Nevertheless, it is classy and I am sure it well help to build a quality brand for the 350 firms signed up under the QS banner so far.  Of course, attracting clients to a brand is one thing, keeping them is quite another; QS will have to deliver the goods in service terms if it is to have the real impact in the high street that it is aiming for.  But getting clients in through the door in the first place is a good start.

High street firms need to be applying some serious thought to how they are going to respond.  Clearly, most can't dream of spending anything approaching this amount of money on advertising, so they are going to have to work out how else to defend their positions in an increasingly competitive market.