I am an Attorney at Marketing!

I often tell people that I am a marketing attorney – I operate and do business in the same way an attorney would. My fees, professional approach and mindset are actually not too dissimilar. My clients deserve a fair trial, and the only difference is that I defend products, services or ideas, not people. I do the same level of preparation and due diligence as a trial attorney would in a major hearing.

The results are also the same. When I win a case and the product, service or idea becomes successful, it could be worth millions to the company, and my fees are then really nominal.

Like companies seek legal counsel, they also need marketing counsel to ensure their efforts are rewarded in the marketplace. After reading this report, you will understand why I think like I do. I hope you will also want to become your own marketing attorney!

We need to be able to defend our product, service or ideas

If you have been following me and my work you have grasped my concept of marketing as the process of bringing value to the marketplace.

Having said this, we assume all along that people will welcome us with warm and loving arms if we do bring value. But as you know, there are many people, products, and ideas out there that are not successful! Why? There are a lot of reasons, but one of the major reasons I believe is that customers are not able to see immediate value in the offering. They cannot see the relevance and significance of the offering to their lives. Or if you look at it another way, the product, service or idea was not given a “fair trial.” It was “sent to jail,” never to be seen again. It leads me to the basis of this report Your Marketing Attorney at Work.

Products, Services and Ideas cannot talk!

We often hear the saying “the voice of the customer.” This plays a critical role in any successful product development process. But what we seldom hear is the voice of the product, service or idea. This is usually represented by the marketing folks. 

What top quality marketing folks do to a high degree is to extract the value of any product, person or thing (the intrinsic value) and convert it to perceived value, value that is relevant and significant to others. 

Then we make a compelling case for it. We basically defend the concept in a court of law, which is the open market. 

Our job, like any attorney’s, is to ensure the products, services or ideas get a fair trial. We assume that all products are innocent until proven guilty! But our clients cannot talk, so we get supporting information from those who created the concept, either through reading reports or direct interviews. 

Top Marketing folks think and act like attorneys 

The concept I’ve just outlined may seem a bit obscure right now. How can a marketing professional be seen as an attorney? Aren’t marketing folks the people who create hype and commotion, and aren’t attorneys those folks in dark suites that give us facts and figures? Are we not talking about two entirely different things?

The perception many have of marketing folks is not true. In fact, marketing is probably not what you think it is. I have discussed this extensively in my other reports. Marketing is not about hype or commotion – it is about value, the process of bringing value to the marketplace. In the case of business, this value makes people want to buy your product, service or idea. In the case of a job, it makes someone want to hire you. In the case of a relationship, it makes someone want to get closer to you.

But the process of bringing value to the marketplace takes time and effort. And most people fall down in being able to make a compelling and convincing case.

I have found that most people are very good (in fact, exceptionally good) at what they do. What they are not so good at is telling others how they can benefit from the idea, and this is where marketing enters.

Marketing questions are not dissimilar from the way an attorney would question you:

– Why is your offer so good?

– How is it different from what others offer?

– How will it benefit and improve others’ lives?

– What one thing would you say describes it best?

Top marketing people pursue a very critical line of questioning before they take on and defend your product, service or idea in a court of law (or the open marketplace, which is the biggest court in the world!)

The story of a world class marketing attorney

David Ogilvy, one of my all-time advertising heroes, was a legend of advertising. He sold door to door, and did not start his business until he was in his early forties, but went on to become an icon of the industry. He was known as the most famous advertising man in the world. He wrote ads for American Express, Rolls Royce, Palmolive and others.

In the late 1950’s he was asked to write an ad for the new Rolls Royce. Rolls Royce senior management asked him to develop a “Killer ad.” They expected him to come up with it in a few days.

David said it would take a few weeks. He told Rolls Royce senior management that he would have to spend weeks reading though all the technical manuals and would have to sit down with all the engineers, then he could give them the ad they needed. 

Rolls Royce gave him access to all the information he needed.

They provided case evidence. He interviewed the engineers, read the testing reports, and in one of those reports, found the evidence he needed to win the case. One report said:

He made millions for the then Palmolive Company, just by studying a technical report that was able to quantify how much skin dryness the soap would remove. Again, the role of the marketing attorney is to dig and dig, until they find that one form of evidence that can save the case. There are no shortcuts in marketing, just hard work.

How to play the marketing attorney

I hope by now you have begun to understand the way to do quality marketing and bring value to the marketplace is in acting like an attorney. Get the facts and present them in a way that makes a compelling case. This way, the verdict will be in your favor!

To make the task of playing attorney easier, marketing folks have three sets of tools:

1. Market Research

This tool is used to get the facts, to make a sound and robust case. Nearly all information is public domain these days. Even if it is not, you can get the information by doing telephone interviews. Market research, as I say in my book, is what is missing from marketing. People are not prepared to invest time and effort in getting the facts on which to build a robust case.

2. Marketing Communications

Once you have the facts, which mean reading every piece of information you can, use the information to make your case. This is usually in the form of some form of communication. In the case of a product, it could be a press release, a direct mail letter or ad, as Rolls Royce did. Professional copywriters are trained to take information and put it into a context relevant and significant to others.

“At 60 miles per hour, all you can hear is the sound of the electric clock.”

So his headline for the ad read:

“At 60 miles per hour, all you can hear in the new Rolls Royce is the sound of the electric clock.”

The main body or copy of the 600 or so word ad went into detail of how much effort actually went into making a Rolls Royce. It talked about the attention to detail in making leather for upholstery and the attention to detail in the interior wood trim. It used marketing’s bestselling technique – Education! Education! Education!

The ad ran in 1959, and sold out the complete North American inventory for the new Rolls Royce.

Did David lie? Did he misrepresent the facts? No, like a world class trial attorney, he got all the facts and represented them in an objective way that brought out the true value.

So here you see how top quality marketing is about being factual. Contrary to what you may believe, the truth does sell!

If you go back and look at great marketing professionals, you will find they approach marketing much like an attorney. They care deeply about the client. To ensure the product, service or idea gets a fair hearing, they gather facts and spend weeks just on the data collection aspects. They do their homework!

Claude Hopkins is another marketing genius, and was in fact David Ogilvy’s mentor. And David said that no one should be able to write an ad unless they had read Claude Hopkins’ book Scientific Advertising at least seven times! Claude said he would spend months researching a product. He said he would read dry-as- ust technical reports in an effort to find that one thing to give his product a fair defense.

3. Sell the idea!

If you have done your homework (your market research) correctly, you should have no problem in selling your idea via the communication channel you choose. In many cases, though, it requires personal follow-up. People are busy, and this is where your sales force enters the picture.

Summary

One of the major reasons that I love marketing so much is because I believe that I give people, products or things a new life. It makes me think positive and it keeps me curious. I hope I am able to share the same mindset with you.

I assume that all people, products and ideas that I care to represent are innocent. I just dig hard enough to find the supporting evidence, and then the game is mine.

In the case of job hunting, I push my students exceptionally hard for areas of differentiation from their competitors, areas they can add maximum value, areas in which they are absolutely the best. Armed with this information, we send out powerful value propositions that have the power of an atomic bomb on impact.

Its fun, exciting, and most of all, very rewarding. I don’t mind staying up late at night when the cause is worthwhile. 

Once you adopt the marketing attorney mindset, you will never settle for less than you deserve. Get the facts to prove your case, and when you win, you win for a good cause, living life to the fullest!