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Attorney David Maloney runs fantastic Super Bowl TV ads for Maloney Lyons, LLC. In this podcast, David explains how he got started running Super Bowl ads, and why the people of Mobile Alabama eagerly await his firm’s ads each year.
David also covers how he got started creating commercials, creating commercials in a conservative area where attorney advertising was frowned upon, which ads get traction, how the ads are created, how Super Bowl ads differ from regular TV ads, call to action vs branding, funny vs informative ads, negotiating with various TV stations such as NBC CBS Fox ABC, attention to detail, measuring success, lessons learned, and if he actually returns everyone’s call.
Visit David Maloney here: https://maloney-lyons.com/maloney-david-j-esq/.
Watch his 2025 Super Bowl commercial here: https://youtu.be/A8tKgSKTOBw.
See the Personal Injury Super Bowl Ads of 2025: https://optimizemyfirm.com/super-bowl-lix/.
See all episodes or subscribe to the Personal Injury Marketing Minute here: https://optimizemyfirm.com/podcasts/.
Transcript:
Lindsey:
Welcome to the Personal Injury Marketing Minute, where we quickly cover the hot topics in the legal marketing world. I’m your host, Lindsey Busfield. Watching the Super Bowl is one of the highlights of my year. While I’m always a little disappointed that the Broncos hardly ever make it to the big game, the commercials never let me down. This has been especially true with a handful of personal injury commercials this year. Maloney-Lyons had a particularly hilarious commercial that aired during the Super Bowl and I’m excited to have David Maloney as our guest today.
David:
Hey. Thanks for having me, Lindsey.
Lindsey:
Well, tell us a little bit about yourself, about your practice.
David:
Well, what’s interesting is I had a commercial about what made me decide to become a lawyer to begin with. Which is that when I was 13, I had to read To Kill a Mockingbird for Mrs. Wesselman’s English class. And then, that was followed up with us being able to watch it as well. And when I read it, I first started thinking, “Okay. I think this is what I want to do.” And then, when I saw it, that solidified it further. And then, I was on… My father had visitation with me. I think it was like over maybe spring break or something and we were driving somewhere on the New York State Thruway. And I had told him that we had read this book and watched this and that I thought that I wanted to be a lawyer.
And at that point, he told me that that was what he had always wanted to be. But that my being born kind of changed plans, and so that then bolstered it even more. And so, I decided to become an… I went to law school and I knew I wanted to represent the underdog. And then, you realize criminal law is a little different. And then, you realize also that when you’re dealing with personal injury, the victims, since they’re going up against big insurance companies, are usually the underdog. So ironically, years later after I’d become an attorney, I did an ad that… Especially being down here in Mobile, Alabama, which is right up the street from Monroeville, which is where the courthouse is that they still have that to Kill a Mockingbird plays every year, because that’s where a lot of it was based off of. It resonated to have a commercial that focused on that.
Lindsey:
Well, and To Kill a Mockingbird, I think most of us read that that freshman year of high school. And Atticus Finch was such a profound character and so meaningful for people on a lot of different levels, both for career aspirations in terms of social justice. And it was one of the first books that I really connected with and it inspired my love of reading. So I love to hear that you say that and that that was part of your journey as well.
David:
Well, it struck a chord in the idealist in me.
Lindsey:
Yeah. And I mean, just such a well-written character from a literary perspective. But also, a very poignant character in terms of the course of US history, so I think that that is a great story. And so, you say that you made a commercial based on that. Tell me a little bit about that.
David:
It basically just said exactly what I told you, but in 30 seconds.
Lindsey:
Excellent. So clearly, you’re using commercials as a part of your marketing campaign. And today, we’re talking about your commercial that you use for the Super Bowl. Do you regularly make commercials as a part of your marketing strategy or is it typically a once a year type of thing?
David:
See, Alabama, especially the Mobile marketing area, was historically known as very conservative. So when I… I passed the bar in ’92, but I started actively doing personal injury around ’99, 2000, and that’s when I started doing advertising. And in 2000, it was frowned upon in conservative Mobile, Alabama. So my first ads didn’t even have me in them. They were actually just blank… They were what I call word spots. Your TV would go black and then all of a sudden with no sound, words would pop up on your screen in Times New Roman. And they would say, “You’re home again watching television,” and then it would fade the black and come back and it would say, “Because you were injured.” Then it would fade back, “It wasn’t your fault.” And then, it would go on to talk about insurance companies adding insult injuries and who do you call and blah, blah, blah. And then, it would ultimately say my name.
And the reason why I did that was because it was so subtle, that it didn’t evoke the ire of the local conservatives and those… Even the judges locally frowned upon lawyers who advertised then. So I was one of the first in our market to advertise on television. There had been one or two others who had attempted and met dismal fates. And so, this snuck under the radar. And by the time I had gained traction and name recognition with that type of marketing, I was well on my way. And then, what happened was September 11th hit. And when the towers went down and everybody… If you remember, there was two weeks where nobody advertised anything. Because everything was news about that attack and what we were doing in response and the mourning period.
And the first advertisers to start advertising were the big guns. They were the Nike’s, the Pepsi’s, the Coca-Cola’s, the McDonald’s, and the Budweiser’s. And they all, because they didn’t want to appear as if they were evoking to emotions, ran silent spots with black screens and words. The exact same thing I’d been doing for almost two years, for a solid year and a half. And suddenly, my original idea started looking like a copycat idea because all the big names were doing it.
So I then had to switch up and start doing ads with me in them. And the very first ads I started doing were interview style ads where I would have my local TV account exec ask me off the cuff questions like you’re asking now. And I would respond, but I needed to respond in 26 seconds or less because you needed four seconds for a tagline.
And we would do an hour and a half session and we might get 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, sometimes 10 ads out of it in one sit down. And then, we would edit him down. And the one that I just told you about was he asked me a question, “What made you decide to become a lawyer?” And my response was, “When I was 13, I had to read To Kill a Mockingbird for English class. And at that point, I knew I wanted to become a lawyer. And as time went by, I knew I wanted to represent the underdog. And if you are going up against a big insurance company, you’re the underdog,” and that was the ad.
And so, I had a number of those that ran for years. And then, I got called by my rep 15 years ago and said, “We had somebody pull out of the Super Bowl, we’re willing to offer you a deal on it,” and I went, “Okay.” And I had one creative ad that I had done that I hadn’t aired yet and I went, “What’s the deal?” And he gave me a really good deal on it and I happened to have an ad in the can that wasn’t hilarious, but it was creative and I thought, “Okay. We’ll give it a shot.”
And we did it and we got a little buzz. And then the next year I said, “Okay. We’re going to do something funny.” We’ve done one every year except for one and that was a year that one station just, for whatever reason, wanted way too much money. They overpriced. They wanted twice as much as anybody had ever charged before and I said, “You know what? I’m going to pass this year.” And then, the irony is that was the last time, before this one, that they had it in the Superdome. And then, there was a power outage and they had blank airtime for 20 minutes and had they sold me a spot-
Lindsey:
Yeah. That’s interesting. What a great story on how to get in there just by chance. Clearly, it has paid off for you or else you wouldn’t keep doing it. So let’s-
David:
It’s become almost expected of us at this point. In other words, the local market before in the days and weeks preceding the Super Bowl ad, there are people who are already posting comments saying that they are looking forward to seeing what we’re going to do more than even the game. And then, we also, oddly enough, run commercials for our commercial.
Lindsey:
Oh, wow.
David:
We run 5-second and 10-second promos that say, “What kind of commercial is David J. Maloney going to run in the big game this year?” And we tell them when to look for it in the game. “Stay tuned just before halftime,” or, “Stay tuned at the end of the third quarter,” whenever it is we know it’s going to air.
Lindsey:
Well, I want to dig into some more of the specifics of the functionality of your ad within the Super Bowl and how that all comes together. But first, describe the ad that you created this year so that people can get an idea of the theme for your ads.
David:
Well, the very first spots that I told you about, the word spots earlier that said, “Who are you going to call?” And then, it would say my name David J. Maloney and then it would say, “He will personally return your call.” And so, for over 25 years, my slogan, if you will, is, “I will personally return your call.” And people always ask me, “Where do you find the time? How do you possibly do that?”
I had two or three ideas running through my head for what we might do this year. And historically, we had done parodies of movies and things. And I had two or three ideas and one was really ambitious and I didn’t know if we were going to be able to get it then on deadline and then… I was watching something and it ended with a whole bunch of identical people in one place and it occurred to me, “Clones.” I went, “This would be funny. The best…” And then, I thought… People always ask me how do I personally… Let’s run with clones. We’re going to go with clones.
So then, we had to create this whole story and we had to come up with something that had some good cinematography, but also something that could be done. So I came up with a storyline for it. Because I don’t use an agency, every commercial that we’ve done is something that started in my head. And I called the folks who I work with on these things and I said, “This is what I’m thinking of. How do I do this? How can we make this work?”
I knew I wanted to be able to high five myself. I knew that was one thing I wanted. I knew that we needed to have some humor. And we needed to have something with a tiny, little bit of shock value for water cooler talk and for buzz and for hype and for potential viral moments. So we actually have four different endings. We have one that only ran in the Super Bowl, which is the one that ends with the clone where I say, “It’s only a problem when a clone goes rogue.” And then, the next thing you see is the clones in a strip club.
Lindsey:
I love that. That’s hilarious.
David:
And again, debate over how appropriate it would be in this conservative Bible belt market but the idea was to get some buzz and shock value. And in the Super Bowl, you never know what else is going to run. You never know if it’s going to be a lackluster year of ads or if it’s going to be a stellar year of ads.
So the number one rule of game theory is you always presume everybody else is going to play their best game. So I presumed everybody was… So I said, “You know what? Let’s pull the stops. No, we’re not going to run one of the safer ones. We’re going to run that one.” And for the most part, honestly, from what people have told me, they considered a lot of the ads with the exception of one or two to be relatively lackluster.
So as a result, most people perceived my ad to be in the Top 4, if not the Top 3. And locals tend to, because I’ve done it enough and… Look forward to them a little bit, at least that’s what they tell me. I think maybe they gave me a little more credit than I deserved, because I am local and we do produce it locally. And we’re going up against 60-second ads produced by big major studios with big major stars in them and somehow we still have to compete with that.
Lindsey:
Right. Obviously, there’s going to be some sort of hometown edge. But it is creative and it’s funny and it gets to the point of what it is that sets you apart from other law firms in your area. But also, nationwide. It’s very much unheard of to have an attorney, or at least not very often do you have an attorney, who personally answers calls and is really involved in every case that they handle. And so, to have that be a part of your identity. And then, to drive that home in a way that captures attention, is a little bit edgy, is a little funny, but bottom line is memorable is a really great opportunity to seize. So I loved watching your commercial and thought that it was one of the best ones that I had seen.
David:
Well, I appreciate it. Thank you so much.
Lindsey:
So let’s talk a little bit more about the process of creating the ad. We’ve looked at where the ad concept comes from. Clearly, these are things that are coming out of your head. You said you aren’t working with a brand agency. But what type of company are you working with to get it produced and get it placed for the network?
David:
Well, see, I’ve had a relationship with one company for probably 15 years. I was introduced to them through an agency that approached me a long time ago and wanted to work with me. And I was like, “Well, they’re all my own ideas,” and they’re like, “Well, we can connect you with the folks with the production company that… They got the best cameras. They’re local. They’ve got lighting. They’ve got this. They’ve got that.”
There was about two years where I worked with this one company and collaborated a little bit with one person there. And she would often bring some things to the table and I might bring up an idea and then she’d say, “Well, what if we did this with it?” And so, we collaborated and we tweaked things. And every once in a while, she’d come to me with an idea. I go, “I don’t really know.” And then, I’d sit on it for six months and then something else… I go, “You know what? That idea you brought up, I thought of something else and we might be able to mix them together.”
And so, we had a good collaborative effort for a couple of years and then that agency fell by the wayside. And when it did, I continued the relationship with the camera crew. And so, that’s how it works now. And the good thing is I essentially cut out the middleman, so I don’t have that agency fee. And being as most of the ideas were essentially mine to start… And now, I essentially collaborate a little bit with them and I bounce things off my partner and I bounce things off… My father had an ad agency when I was young, so I know a little bit about that. My undergraduate degree is in Fine and Applied Art from RIT in graphic design, so I had to take marketing for that kind of stuff. So I have a little bit more of that knowledge coming in than your garden variety law student coming out of school.
Lindsey:
You do and that serves you immensely. And so, when you have the creative ideas and then you have the relationships in place with the videographers and that crew. You put it together, you create this video. For those who don’t have an advertising background, what is the next step? If somebody wanted to create a video and air it on the Super Bowl, who would they get in touch with?
David:
So the Super Bowl is a different thing entirely from your normal type of marketing. With lawyers, there’s generally two types of ads. There’s call to action which is, “If you’ve been hit, call me right now,” in your face. And then, there’s branding. Call to action is, “Call me right now. This is how much money we’ve gotten other people. If you’ve been in a wreck, call us or call me. If you’ve already been in a wreck, call us.”
My advertising is branding. The majority of my people who call me say they’ve been seeing me for years, decades, whatever. And they always said, “I hope nothing ever bad happens to me. But if something ever does, that’s the guy I’m going to call,” because I’ve established name recognition and trust in the marketplace. And so, mine is branding.
And sometimes that branding is based on doing informative ads. Sometimes it’s based on doing ads that are funny. Sometimes it’s based on doing ads that just let people know what you do and just getting your name out there. So that when or if something happens, their memory is jogged. And a lot of it is having to fight your way through the clutter. I told you, when I first started, it was just essentially me and one or two people who were being run out of town.
And then, a few years after that, a couple of other locals started doing it and it all fit. There was enough to go around. Now, we’re in a market that really can handle about maybe 8 to 10 advertising firms and we’ve got 14. And so, you’ve got to find a way to fight through the clutter. And there’s a lot of ads that are, “He got me this much money,” or, “She got me this much money,” or, “This team got me this much money,” and I’ve never…
I shy away from those things. In fact, I have an ad that makes fun of lawyers’ ads that do that. Because, in my heart, I believe those are misleading and the reason why I think they’re misleading is because they have no relevance to whatever the person who’s watching TV’s case might be worth. And the other thing is they don’t always tell the full story. There was a fellow who used to advertise that he had gotten a $25 million judgment. And although that was true on his face, he did get a $25 million judgment. What he didn’t bother to share was that it was a default judgment and he never collected a penny. So the public is of this opinion that he must have gotten somebody $25 million and that they got this recovery that they were owed. They never collected a penny. It was a default. The person had no insurance. He filed it, got a default. Sure, it was a judgment. He wasn’t lying. However… Once you hear the whole story.
There’s another one where somebody was boasting that they had gotten a $12 million judgment, that there was a $12 million judgment. The interesting thing is that case had multiple parties, multiple lawyers representing multiple plaintiffs, and that plaintiff with that firm only got a small smidgen of that. Because the other people who were represented by other firms, who actively tried the case more aggressively, recovered a whole lot more. But so now, the local public’s thinking, “Oh, this lawyer’s a great lawyer. They got a $12 million judgment.”
No, they didn’t. Their client’s gross verdict portion was much smaller of the overall gross and their net was even less than that. Then, there was another one where somebody had advertised they’d gotten them a multi-million dollar settlement. But word on the street was the case was worth 33% more. It was worth… In other words, they boasted that they got like $8 million for somebody, but the case was probably worth 12.
So what they were really advertising was something them shorting a case, rather than trying it and doing the work to get the top dollar. But the public sees $8 million and there’s no… They know the price of everything, the value of nothing, so they think this lawyer’s a great lawyer by getting somebody $8 million. Except for one thing, the case was worth 12. So how great really are they?
Lindsey:
And these figures are just so inflated. And beyond that, that’s not even the typical amount for a standard personal injury case. They gravitate towards these gigantic numbers. But if they were to actually post the averages, which clearly every personal injury case is different based on the circumstances and… But yes, those types of ads are incredibly misleading.
David:
Well, it also makes it difficult for firms like ours that do try cases to try cases, because jurors could very well lump us in with other firms. And if they lump us in, in that way, then it stops being about fairness and justice and compensation and starts to look like it’s all about the money.
Lindsey:
Yes.
David:
And my number one aim and goal, and I’ve said this a bunch and I’ve said it in other interviews, my number one aim and goal is not to make money. My number one aim and goal is to help people and the reason why is because… Well, let me say this. My number two aim and goal is not to make a little bit of money. My number two aim and goal is to make a whole lot of money. But you’re not entitled to the second one unless your first focus is the first one. And so, when all of your advertising is focusing on the second, what message does that say? The message says, “It’s not about helping people.” The message says, “It’s all about the money.” And in my opinion, like I said, you may not be as… I believe you’re only entitled to it if your number one aim and goal is to help people. It’s got to start there. It’s got to start here.
Lindsey:
Right. It’s not about making money, it’s about making a difference. And yes, that difference comes from a large settlement or a large verdict.
David:
The only thing we’re allowed to get… In other words, I can’t go to court and have them force somebody to patch somebody back up. I can’t force them to give them their life back. I can’t force them to undo the wreck and to turn back time. I can only go to court and try to get a monetary award amount to try to best make it up to them as much as possible. And there are many times, many times, where you’ve got a death or somebody who suffers a catastrophic injury where to be very frank, there’s no amount of money you’re ever going to be able to get that’s going to make it up to them. But at that point, my approach is I just… I’m not going to leave any stone unturned. At that point, I’m going to look for every possible option and opportunity to be able to get the best recovery to try to get this person back to… There may never be a normal. There’s a new normal. You know what I mean? But to try to make them as whole as I can.
Lindsey:
Try to make the best new normal possible given the circumstances.
David:
Exactly.
Lindsey:
And clearly, this is something that you’re incredibly passionate about and it comes through in your branding, it comes through in the way that you handle your cases, and it comes through in all of your messaging. But to get back onto the topic of the actual advertising process itself, walk me through who it is that you would contact in order to get the commercial aired on Super Bowl. And I just want to learn a little bit more about the nuts and bolts of what goes into that.
David:
Well, you’ve got two different aspects of it. You’ve got production and then you’ve got the actual purchase of the spot. And you can buy spots nationally, you can buy them locally, you can buy them regionally, and where you get… If you’re buying it locally or regionally, there’s only so many local avails. In other words, there’s only so many empty local time slots that a local station has and what you pay it is like anything else. It’s supply and demand.
So it depends on how soon you get in and make the purchase and you have some ability to request where you fall in the game. And so, one aspect of it is negotiating with the local station and a different station has it every year. Now, traditionally, it’s always a station other than ABC. For 10, 20 years, ABC hasn’t had it. My understanding is they’re now getting into the mix.
So ABC may be in the rotation soon. But historically, you’re dealing with CBS, NBC, or Fox, and it rotates. So one year, Fox would have it. The next year, CBS might have it. The next year, NBC might have it. Then, it goes back to beginning again. And then, you’re also… Where you may luck out like one year, the reason why that one year they wanted so much more money locally was because the Saints were playing that year and the fans locally in this market are primarily Saints fans. So they felt their local viewership would be higher, so they jacked up rate.
Unless you have something like that. So unless you’re in Atlanta and the Falcons are in it, your rates over the years should be fairly consistent with a modest increase each year. But if the Falcons are in it and you’re buying Atlanta local TV, you’re going to be paying a premium for it. So that’s first, spot.
The second aspect is production. And again, there’s varying types of production. You can take the normal ad you normally run and run it. I’ve had other lawyers in the market do that where they run the same ad that they’ve run before, just because they want the eyeballs. And that’s an option. You don’t incur the huge production cost of making something new, special, and fancy. But you also run the risk of not being remembered being in the game at all.
You may be remembered generally and you… Worse, and there were a lot of eyeballs. It’s one of the biggest viewed events of the year, so you’ll get the eyeballs. So if all you’re interested in is eyeballs, you can run your same old ad and not incur the production cost and put all your money into buying the ad.
I end up doing both, which is I spend the money on the ad and I spend the money on the production. Because in my mind, if you’re not… The Super Bowl is viewed differently than any other form of television. It’s viewed by groups of people and then they immediately have their own critique. People are in Super Bowl parties. People are at pubs, bars, sports bars, wherever. Some people are watching at home with their family. But even then so, unless you’re sitting by yourself, you’re engaged in a critique of not just every play and not just the halftime show, which people will critique every year as well. But also, the ads. And so, I want my production quality to stand tall. I want the message to stand tall. I want the humor to stand tall. And I want people to also think that, “If this firm, if this guy puts this much attention to detail in his ads, he’ll do that with my case too.”
Lindsey:
That’s a great point, both in the attention to detail with your ads. Because you want somebody who you know is going to be focused on everything that they’re doing and putting the right amount of effort into the things they’re doing. A Super Bowl commercial is a really big investment. Clearly, we haven’t talked about numbers on it specifically. But it is one of the most expensive pieces of branding that you could do in a year, depending on when your spot is and how much money you put into that level of production. And so, I would imagine it would inspire a lot of confidence and faith in your viewers and your prospective clients, knowing that you are willing to put that investment into your firm, into your practice, and then down the road into their case.
David:
It’s a lot of eggs in one basket.
Lindsey:
It is. So let’s talk about this basket of eggs. How do you measure the success of the ad after the fact?
David:
Well, there was another thing that I was going to point out when I was talking about how people have their critiques in real-time. And I say that people are at Super Bowl party and they all talk and they all laugh. And at the end, they rank them and they talk about which one they thought was the best and which one they thought was the worst.
And then, everything else is forgotten unless you’re in a top view or the worst. So you can either make the absolute worst and be remembered for that, which might be a good thing, might be a bad thing. Or you can be in the top 2 or 3 and be remembered. But the other thing is social media. Even if you’re sitting by yourself, there’s a tendency for people to chime in on the social media. And so, that’s one of the ways that I know.
I know within a few minutes because social media will light up, my phone will light up. I’ll start getting texts. I’ll start getting instant messages. I’ll start seeing stuff on Twitter, Instagram. We had one a few years back called The Godfather of Personal Injury. That thing had had almost a million views and then somebody accidentally pulled it off. And then, we had to start over and it’s got another 1.3 million now.
That went viral very, very quickly and… I think it was retweeted like 40,000 times within a day or two. And so, you’ll know. You’ll know. And we’ve had ads that have had more views than there are people in our local market, which means either some people are watching them over and over again for the entertainment value standalone from it actually being an advertisement. Or, it is gone viral for people to see outside of the market and people are sharing it and saying, “You got to check this out.” And so, that’s how you know. That’s one of the ways you know that something was successful, because you see the numbers from a social media standpoint. And then, there’s also the comments and the likes and all of those things. And then, of course, there’s the tried and true oldest formula in the book, “Is my phone ringing?”
Lindsey:
And that is really, I guess, the point that I would traditionally measure success of a marketing campaign by, is do you typically see an uptick in phone calls and caseload after the Super Bowl ad airs? And if so, how long does it take to see that uptick?
David:
Yes and no. You do and you have new incoming calls from new prospective clients that are real cases. And then, you also have new incoming calls from things that are just not cases and some of the crazies. But remember, also, the advertising that we do is branding based. So I’m not doing call to action ads. I’ve seen other lawyers do call to action ads in the Super Bowl. It always has me scratching my head. Because then, you’re looking for everybody who is just in a wreck that week and you’re doing it in the Super Bowl.
Lindsey:
Right.
David:
To me, the Super Bowl is an opportunity to branding and get an entire market to remember your name and want to call you when something happens, whether it be a week from now, a month from now, six months from now, a year from now.
Lindsey:
It’d be really interesting to see side by side looking at another firm who is doing one of those more call to action-based commercials and see, “Are their numbers fluctuating in the same pattern that yours are?” Or, if there’s a substantial difference. Because clearly, you’re focusing on branding. You’re focused on who you are as an attorney, what your firm does that is substantially different from other firms out there and it’s going to have a longer impact than, “I’m the hammer. Call me now.” It’s a very different approach. Not to say that one is better than the other. But yours is going to have a very different impact long-term in terms of memorability and then connecting with your local community. So I love the approach that you’ve taken from that.
David:
Yeah. So to finish answering your question, one part is actually placing the advertising and the other part is actually producing the advertising. And the production starts in my head and I start thinking as soon as one ad is done. As soon as Super Bowl is finished, I am already starting to think, “Okay. What can I do next year?” Because it’s become something that’s kind of expected of me now, which is an expensive hobby. But it’s become something that’s become expected.
And then, the other problem is now, not only are my ads being ranked against the other ads that run. But the local market now ranks the ad I just ran against my prior ads. So now, the question is, “How do I top?” And the problem is, is the Godfather of Personal Injury ad, which is my favorite to this day, I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to top that one.
And then, you also have periods where you have writer’s block, where you… There was a good six, nine months where I was like, “I got nothing. Nothing.” And then, two months, three months, normally at the time we would already have storyboards down and be shooting, I had nothing this past year. Nothing. And then, all of a sudden, I had four ideas, all of which were plausible, and we went with clones. But one of the ideas, the one that was really, really ambitious that we wouldn’t have been able to do, I’m probably going to start working on it next month because it’s so ambitious. But I already know what I’m going to do this year and I’m not saying what it is, but it’s ambitious.
Lindsey:
Well, we wouldn’t want to have any spoilers on what to expect next year. But talk to me, as you’ve gone through this process, clearly there have been lessons learned along the way. As you start preparing for the one for next year, if there were anything that you were going to do differently, what would you change?
David:
I’m not sure if I follow the question. Give it to me one more time in a different way maybe.
Lindsey:
So along the process, talk to me about lessons learned as you have gone through different iterations of these ads. What tips can you give to somebody who is contemplating running a Super Bowl ad? What are some of the lessons that you’ve learned along the way that you didn’t necessarily know starting out?
David:
One, I’d never skimp on production quality because it shows. It just shows. And the second thing is don’t underestimate the value of humor. As lawyers, we tend to take ourselves too seriously. And people, I think especially in a situation like the Super Bowl, they want to be entertained and that there’s…And I was wrong earlier. I said there’s two types of ads: call to action and branding. No, there’s a third type. There’s bore-you-to-death ads and those are the, “Hi, my name is Bob Smith and I’ve been practicing law for 22 years. If you call the law firm of Bob Smith, you will benefit from our 22 years of experience. And when it comes time to try your case, we will bore a jury to death.”
And that’s the third type and you definitely don’t want to fall in that. So there’s features and benefits ads too. There’s lawyers who do features and benefits and that may work for certain types of law. It might work for bankruptcy. It might work for divorce. It might work for certain types. I just think at this stage of personal injury where there’s so many lawyers fighting for attention, I just don’t think that stands out from the clutter.
But so, one, be entertaining. Again, production quality. Those are the two things. And obviously, it’s got to have a message that resonates. It’s got to have something that ties into law. It can’t just be something funny. And it’s got to be something that I think, at the end of the day, gets people talking over the next days or weeks. Or you might as well just run a normal ad and not put anything in the Super Bowl.
Lindsey:
Well, and I think there are a few majorly important points that you hit on within that question. One of which is people come to the Super Bowl for… People who watch the Super Bowl for the commercials like myself, come to it expecting to be entertained. And so, if you are not funny, you are not engaging in that platform in the way that it was meant to be engaging. And so, people are going to be disappointed with your Bob Smith or they aren’t necessarily wanting to be hammered at by the, “I’m the Law Eagle and I’m going to…” That’s not why they’re-
David:
You know, the funny thing is, is that Eagle ad has had a gazillion views because it’s so utterly ridiculous. You could do something that’s totally ridiculous. But then, you also run the risk of not being taken seriously. And if you’re not trying cases, that’s fine. But if you are trying cases like our firm does, then I got to worry about whether a jury is going to take us seriously. See, when we’re running ads, we’re not just running them for prospective clients. They’re not the only people who are seeing them. Perspective jurors are seeing them too.
Lindsey:
Great point. That’s a great point. And then, the other thing that you have managed to do really well is to set yourself apart. First, in the series of commercials that was quiet. And when somebody has a TV on, they’re expecting to have that noise. They’re expecting to be inundated with sounds and colors and all of that. And by taking that away and changing the platform substantially from what is expected, you’re going to be able to gather that attention and I think that that was something very smart that you did.
David:
Well, and everybody in our market has their own way. Everybody has their own thing. They have their own color scheme. They have their own message on their billboards. You’ve got the one guy who says he wins. The other guy who’s one call that’s all. You’ve got the other guy who used to be the hammer but can no longer be the hammer, because there was another hammer who was first. And you’ve got the call-me-right-now guy. You’ve got the family firm, the brothers. You got the guys who stand on trucks. In every market, it seems as if you’ve got the same usual suspects. You know what I mean? In every market, I can visit any town in America now, any sizable town where there’s advertising lawyers, and there’s always one guy who’s one call that’s all, there’s always one guy who’s standing on a truck, there’s always one guy who’s using Judge Joe Brown. Like I said, I try to clear myself from the clutter.
Lindsey:
Yes. So you don’t want to go along with the tropes that are already in existence. You want to do something that is surprising and different.
David:
Well, and by the way, some of these lawyers are actually really good lawyers. It’s just you’ve got to set yourself apart somehow so that somebody when they… Again, when something happens to them, they go, “I’m going to call that guy instead of the other guy.” I mean, that’s what this interview is about, is about marketing and advertising, and that’s… My goal is to set myself apart in a way that makes people feel like they know me, that they like me, trust me, and that they know that I am going to return their call. The number of times in which I return a call, and I return so many calls in a day, I would say 10 to 20% of the people go, “Wow. I didn’t expect you were going to call me back.” I’m like, “Well, my ad says I will.” “Well, I didn’t really believe it.”
Lindsey:
Well, and that’s another piece, that I don’t know that we’ve hit on in so many words, is one of the pieces that really sets your brand apart is that it is authentic to you. And it is something that is different about your law firm than any other law firm that is working in your area. Because it has to be authentic, because people are going to either call your firm and you’re going to call them back and hold true to your commercial or you’re not and they’re going to be disappointed and really pissed off. So how-
David:
It forces me. The fact that I advertise, it forces me to keep my word and-
Lindsey:
It holds you accountable. It’s great.
David:
But I’m also, one, very OCD and, two, I am not great at delegating, and I’m a control freak. So I know that if I return the call, I’m the one who is screening that person. I’m not having somebody else screen it and possibly turning down something because they didn’t think of the one extra thing I might think of in making a case and being able to make a case work.
And granted… And I don’t want to take away from Mr. Lyons. He does his share of personally returning calls too and it’s something that we do as a firm. It is our mantra. And I also don’t keep bankers hours. So I know a lot of lawyers, 5:00, 5:30 rolls around, boom, phone’s off. And I will return calls straight up until 9:00 PM.
I tell clients all the time, I go, “Look, if you leave a message at 2:00 in the afternoon and 5:30 rolls around and you haven’t heard from me, don’t think I’m blowing you off. It may be 7:00, 8:00, 9:00 when I get a minute, but I’ll call you. And also beware, it may come from a blocked number, a private number, or a cell number that’s not the office. So if you’re not answering those, you’re going to miss me because I’ll probably be after hours, I’ll probably be calling you from somewhere else.”
Lindsey:
Yeah. And that is just a way that you have set up your business that is very different from other law firms out there. And that’s a personal touch in communication, which is one of the biggest complaints that clients have about their lawyers is the lack of communication and-
David:
I get hired by a lot of people who call me and they call me up and they go, “I just fired my other lawyer.” And normally, that’s a red flag. Normally for us lawyers, we go, “Okay. This person may be a problem client because they’re… And there may not be any way I can make them happy because the last person couldn’t obviously either.” But if they then lead into, “I’ve left X number of messages and haven’t gotten a call,” then I realize that they’re not the problem. They’re calling me because they saw my advertising. My advertising says I’ll personally return their call and they hired somebody else. And then, that person failed to do that, not just a little, a lot and consistently. And the person finally just said, “You know what? I’m going to call the guy who will.”
And then, guess what? They call me and I did call them back and I kept my word and I was there. And then, that bolsters and reinforces it. And then, I ended up actually with a good relationship with them and they were never a problem client. They never became one for me. They just had a handful of normal questions and they were handed off to an associate or a paralegal, because the guy on TV was a figurehead and is too busy flying around in his private plane or out on a golf course to return the client’s calls directly.
Lindsey:
And I love that you have truth in advertising. And if you are investing this much in your brand, in your commercials, and in your clients, what a great experience for everybody involved. So thank you, David, so much for joining us today and sharing your insights on your process with your commercial advertising in the Super Bowl. And also, just on your terrific brand that you have built up and how you serve the community.
David:
Thanks, Lindsey. Thanks for having me.
