Would You Pay 99 Cents to Get Gas With A Lawyer?

Is 99-cent gas even ethical? Equally as important, does it matter? In the ABA Online Journal there is this item about Kevin Renfro and the Becker Law Office running a promotion at a local gas station on the first day of Kentucky’s gas tax hike: 99 cents a gallon for gas.

Apparently led to do this by their PR firm, the Louisville law firm gained a kind of populist notoriety by “slamming the man” and helping 250 drivers beat the high cost of gas, including the tax increase. Except, they didn’t. The law firm actually paid the high price of gas and the tax, but their beneficiaries didn’t.

So, this is the dilemma, I think, for legal marketers. Shall we reduce marketing to slight of hand stunts where there is an apparent popular benefit and coordinate name recognition for the mere chance for a face-to-face fillup with a potential client or shall we, as others around the Legal Water Cooler say, aim at higher strategic ground?

Isn’t the answer obvious? Law firms can continue to buy the brief attention of their market with advertising, publicity gimmicks, giveaways, events, stunts and, egad, seminars, or they can actually learn something about their marketplace by asking their clients and prospects what it is they need and fitting their service array to those actual facts and requirements.

Please, no more 99-cents gas. I’m getting indigestion.