The National Trial Lawyers
  • Home
    • Meet Our Team
    • Contact Us
    • Mission & Goals
    • FAQ
  • Webinars
  • News
  • Membership Directory
    • Top 100 Map – Civil Plaintiff
    • Top 100 Map – Criminal Defense
    • Top 40 Under 40 Map – Civil Plaintiff
    • Top 40 Under 40 Map – Criminal Defense
  • Top 100
    • Civil Plaintiff Officers / Executive Committee
    • Criminal Defense Officers / Executive Committee
    • Benefits
    • About
    • Top 100 President’s Message
    • Diplomat
    • Membership Renewal
    • Member Profile Updates
    • Top 100 Badge
    • Media
  • Top 40
    • Civil Plaintiff Officers / Executive Committee
    • Criminal Defense Officers / Executive Committee
    • Top 40 Under 40 Trial Academy Bootcamp
    • Benefits
    • About
    • Top 40 President’s Message
    • Membership Renewal
    • Member Profile Updates
    • Top 40 Badge
    • Media
  • Specialty Assoc
    • About
    • Shop
    • Officers
    • Membership Renewal
    • Member Profile Updates
    • Media
  • Nominate
    • Top 100
    • Top 40
    • Specialty Association
    • Trial Lawyer Hall of Fame
    • Trial Lawyer of the Year
    • Trial Team of the Year
    • America’s Most Influential Trial Lawyer
    • America’s Most Influential Law Firm
    • Lifetime Achievement Award
  • Shop
  • Magazine
    • A-List
  • Education and Networking Agenda
    • Trial Lawyers Summit
      • Summit Sponsors
    • Top 40 Under 40 Trial Academy Boot Camp
    • Mass Torts Made Perfect
    • The Lanier Master Class 5.0 Trial Academy 2021
    • Webinars
  • Hall of Fame
    • Trial Lawyer Hall of Fame

Should you Use Branded or Generic TV Advertising to Attract Mass Tort Cases?

Posted on November 4, 2014 by Larry Bodine
xarelto commercial

Example of a generic TV commercial, which is not branded with a law firm name.

By Adam Warren

“To brand, or not to brand, that is the question…” OK, I’m pretty sure that’s not what Shakespeare wrote, but we get that question about TV advertising from attorneys from time to time. Some firms broadcast ads branded with a law firm name and others use generic ads that do not mention a law firm.

The fact is, this is does not have to be an either-or question. At its most basic principle, both options work.

Branded campaigns have the ability to make a law firm practically a household name. TV as a medium is a facilitator of trust and lends itself to making brands a trusted source of information or representation.

Recognized legal brands on TV such as Pulaski & Middleman inclusive of the 1-800-BAD-DRUG vanity phone number, Sokolove and Parilman & Associates, are just a few names seen on TV daily.

parilman branded TV commercial

Example of a TV commercial that is branded with a law firm name.

Branding also has benefits for web marketing and online lead capture. Should a consumer see a commercial and not want to speak with a lawyer initially or simply forget the phone number, there is a high probability that they will search out the brand online and locate the law firm separate of media cost. This is referred to as “organic lift” or “halo effect.”

Potential clients aren’t the only ones who know these names. Other mass tort attorneys look to these firms to acquire cases for their own dockets, allowing the name brand to do the advertising followed by the establishment of co-counsel or fee-sharing deals on the back end. Additionally, branding your law firm on television will help not only acquire customers but also alert the mass tort community that you may have cases that they want.

Generic TV advertising

In several instances, law firms would rather stay out of the spotlight when it comes to advertising. This does not mean they are not looking to acquire cases, or that they do not want to use the power of television to drive up their case acquisition. For a myriad of reasons, they prefer to keep their practice out of the limelight and save it for the courtroom.

These firms will instead join together and use a generic campaign. Examples of these types of campaigns include The Sentinel Group, TVM Advocates and Risperdal Alert. Many times multiple law firms will go in together on a campaign and use generic brands to drive calls to their perspective consortium also referred to lead aggregation.

Depending on a firm’s appetite for case acquisition, they will utilize both branded and generic campaigns so they can double up their efforts. Generic campaigns will also drive a halo effect but because they are generic in nature those leads will come at a cost.

It still represents an efficient spend as they are priced much less than live calls. This becomes even more attractive when firms incorporate a performance driven model where instead of paying upfront for the media buys, they only pay for the calls that come in from the advertising campaign.

In our next blog post, we will address how to implement a campaign into mass media marketing using television and how to use either or both a performance-driven model as well as a traditional cash-buy model.


Adam WarrenAdam Warren is President and Co-Founder of OpenJar Concepts®, Inc. and its mass torts division The Sentinel Group™, a full service, direct response marketing and technology company in Temecula, CA, that offers lead generation campaigns on national TV, radio, print and mobile.

Posted in Blog, Marketing

Comments are closed.

News Categories

Subscribe to Blog and VFJ via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog, the Voice for Justice and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Read about other Top Jury Verdicts

Toyota Will Pay $180M to Settle Violations of the Clean-Air Act

Toyota Will Pay $180M to Settle Violations of the Clean-Air Act

The U.S. Department of Justice and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced today that the United States has[Read More...]
Boeing's Insitu Will Pay $25M to Settle a Whistleblower Complaint About Used Drone Parts

Boeing's Insitu Will Pay $25M to Settle a Whistleblower Complaint About Used Drone Parts

Bingen, Wash.-based Insitu, a Boeing subsidiary, has agreed to pay $25 million to settle allegations that it used recycl[Read More...]
Deutsche Bank Agrees to Settle Criminal and Civil Charges for $130M

Deutsche Bank Agrees to Settle Criminal and Civil Charges for $130M

DEUTSCHE Bank AG agreed to pay US$130 million to settle criminal and civil charges that it bribed foreign officials and manip[Read More...]
Boeing Pays $2.5B to Settle Charges Tied to the 737 MAX Crashes

Boeing Pays $2.5B to Settle Charges Tied to the 737 MAX Crashes

Boeing has agreed to pay just over $2.5 billion to resolve a federal charge of “criminal misconduct” for how its [Read More...]
Texas Attorney General Seeks $43M in Google Antitrust Lawsuit

Texas Attorney General Seeks $43M in Google Antitrust Lawsuit

The mass exodus of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton's top staff over accusations of bribery against their former boss has le[Read More...]

#LegalNews

@@TheNTLtop100

Contact Us | Terms of Use | Privacy Policy

Attorney information and content provided on this website is provided for the benefit of members of The National Trial Lawyers and as a public service by Legal Associations Management, Inc. The website and all data are the property of Legal Associations Management, Inc. Data, including without limitation attorney information and content, on the site may not be mined, sold, or used commercially for any purpose without the explicit written consent of Legal Associations Management, Inc. This site may not be accessed by any automated program for extracting data for any use. By accessing and using the site you agree that you will not develop, support or use software, devices, scripts, robots, or any other means or processes (including crawlers, browser plug-ins and add-ons, or any other technology) to scrape data or otherwise copy profiles and other data. Unauthorized use or attempted unauthorized use of this system may subject you to both civil and criminal penalties.