The Gazette 1981

GAZETTE

JULY-AUGUST 1981

Adventure into Advertising

involved in public relations. To assist the local bodies, it was considered that material should be provided to assist them in media and public communications. Future advertising on a national scale will be limited to promoting special services. Local advertising campaigns have been found not to be cost-effective, except for very narrowly-defined purposes. Part of the fund (currently £ 8 7 4 , 0 0 0) which the Law Society raised for its National Information Campaign will now be used for the production of a film concerning the solicitors' profession, and also for the making of video and audio-visual programmes which can be used in education and in projecting the profession to the public. Mr. H. B. Matthissen, Chairman of the Law Society's Professional and Public Relations Committee, commented in that Society's Gazette (29 April 1981): "Good public relations cannot be achieved without first establishing sound professional relations. The Committee is determined that a strong campaign should be mounted to remind members of the pro- fession of their responsibility for the efficient conduct of their work and for good client relations, emphasising that this is in their own self-interest."

The English Experience M OD E RN advertising practitioners may deny the famous dictum of one of the founders of their profession — "One half of all advertising is wasted, but nobody knows which half'. They will point to penetration studies, in-depth surveys, sampling and the other techniques which are used to determine the effectiveness of advertising campaigns but, after two major campaigns of corporate advertising by the Law Society in England, it was considered doubtful whether or not the improvement in the overall reaction of the public to the profession justified continuation of the programme. The Law Society's National Information Campaign began in 1977/7 8 in the Press and on TV, and continued in the Press in 1 9 7 9 / 8 0. Funding was provided through the collection of £ 10 per head from members of the profession (paid with the practising certificate fee) in 1977, and £ 2 0 per head in 1978 and 1979. The monitored results indicated that, broadly speak- ing, there was an overall improvement but not enough to justify continuation. The subsequent approach has been to inform the public of specific aspects of the profession's services through the establishment of information objectives, in fact differing little from those originally established: 1. Increasing public awareness of the work of the pro- fession and the social need for solicitors; 2. Informing the public of the services available from the profession; 3. Involvement of the profession in the achievement of these objectives. The attempt to achieve the first objective through a national advertising campaign was abandoned, largely — as already indicated — as the result of the experiences of 1 9 7 7 - 1 9 8 0, and the high cost of such campaigns. The employment of public relations consultants for general purposes would, it was thought, cost a substantial amount and achieve little. The view was taken that much of the work of such consultants was already covered by "the Law Society's Professional and Public Relations Depart- ment and that local law societies should become more

—a view which would be endorsed by the Public Relations Committee of the Incorporated Law Society of Ireland.•

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