Hubbard One law firm video nothing more than eye candy
That's the word from Joe Campos, a Seattle lawyer, who walked through Hubbard One's booth at the Legal Marketing Association Conference last week. Hubbard One, a law firm website development company for large law firms, was holding a contest asking for ideas and concepts about using video for law firm websites.
I agree [with Hubbard One] that web video can be extremely compelling. Sadly, Hubbard's video advocating the use of video is of such low quality it will probably discourage a lot of prospective clients.For law firms, web video has to be extremely well produced and must deliver something of real value to clients and prospective clients. It can't just be eye candy. The law firm has to deliver really compelling and useful information and create a reason for website visitors to return, learn and ultimately hire the firm.
Video on law firm websites needs to offer useful information to lay people about the legal issue facing them. Otherwise, Hubbard One and Martindale-Hubbell, also hawking law firm video for websites, are just generating incremental income for themselves from their unknowing law firm customers who believe video will generate more legal business.
At least Martindale-Hubbell, which has not produced informational video that I know of, agrees with me that law firms benefit much more from video relevant to the law firm's clients needs.
Give advice; answer basic questions; describe what typically happens in relevant matters; provide value with timely commentary. As with all good marketing, if you can put yourself in the shoes of the buyer and empathize with them and give a little value, you're more likely going to win the business.
My guess is that if we're going to see informational video, it's going to come from the firms themselves using YouTube, as opposed to companies like Hubbard One and Martindale. Hubbard One and Martindale are likely to charge a hefty price for video. The result being not much video, video which will stay on the website for months or years, and video being focused on the law firm and its lawyers.
Hi, Kevin. If you haven't already, I would encourage you to look for yourself at the subject of the blog post you reference. You can find the video we were showing here: http://www.hubbardone.com/video. I love to see healthy discussion about how firms can use the Web and new media more effectively, just as I loved the healthy discussion about the value of blogs in years past. Unfortunately, I think the comments about quality and even Hubbard's message are misguided and misleading. But please, be your own judge. As to the subject of video, our take is that there are as many uses of video as there are of Web pages. Internet video is a relatively new medium, and one which shows great promise for firms who choose to use it as another way to reach their audience -- whichever audience that may be. But in the end, as you suggest, it's all about content. We've seen great examples of informative, timely practice content from clients like Foley & Lardner (http://www.foley.com/multimedia/multimedia.aspx) as well as great examples on the recruiting side from firms like White & Case (http://www.whitecase.com/careers/northamerica/lawyers/videos/). The example we showcased at LMA was a making of the video piece that ended with a quality recruiting video from Frost Brown Todd. Like I said, I'd encourage you to take a look at the video yourself.
Thanks.
Jason Parkman
Hubbard One
Offering value has two components, the first being client value. The examples given really don't speak to Kevin's point: video as a social tool.
The flip-side: what does it cost the firm? If I spent $50K to put up recruiting videos, where's the value if 30% of those selected for the shoot leavemy firm? Shelflife is an issue as well.
Does YouTube offer a good avenue for recruiting? I'd love to see someone take a shot.
Thanks for the comment Jason.
I looked at the video you were showing at LMA, the one on the process you used in working with Frost Brown and then the clip from the video. I found that pretty underwhelming. Looked like the type of ad a small rural town bank would run saying how wonderful they are. The video quality was not great but that may have been because of the small player.
I can see ones like the one for White and Case has having some value for recruiting purposes. Shows people in their own words telling stories and did not look near as staged as the people talking in the Frost one.
The Foley ones were okay but I am mot sure what long term value they give unless they are kept current and offer an RSS feed so viewers get regular updates in the law etc.
Video may have some place in recruiting as puts personal touch on firm, but would think for the tough recruits, the ones you want, they're going to want more than video.
Video can be good, but I hope the trend is not just to use video because it's 'the cutting edge,' the like the marketing person at Frost Brown said. Then it's just like a lot of law firm websites - big dollars, lots of gloss, and firms trying to one up the other. That's eye candy.
Biglaw does raise point. What is the ROI for the video.
What does video cost at Hubbard One to do the ones like Frost Brown and White Case?
The best law firm website video I've seen is on the Morgan Lewis website. Compare and contrast.
Joe
www.digitalmedialawyer.com