MacLean Family Law
The Challenge
After years as senior partner in a prominent Vancouver family law firm, LorneMacLean wanted to pursue a more upscale client base. His new firm, The MacLean Family Law Group had the skills to justify the new focus, but needed to create a brand appropriate for this sophisticated audience. They contacted Fishman Marketing to help develop a marketing program to target this community.
The Targets 
Referrals from local lawyers
Direct to affluent clients
The Solution
FM developed an integrated marketing strategy to attack this market, including advertising, tagline, brochure, logo and web site. The previous firm had used a bulldog image but needed more elegant imagery and message. We created the tag line and two separate ad campaigns, a two-page spread for the Yellow Pages where they have historically received a significant percentage of their direct business, and another for billboards and business publications.
One highly visible tool was the 4-ad print campaign, which used elegant black and white wedding photos of happy couples in love. The accompanying text is a series of heart-breaking, first-person narratives describing the decline of the relationship that led to the divorces. It shows the real, human, emotional side of the divorce practice. Instead of talking about the law firm, it puts the reader in the shoes of the couple, a powerful strategy.
The graceful design resembles a wedding invitation, in potent contrast to the cluttered, heavy-handed shrieking of most Yellow Pages advertisements.
Simultaneously we launched a visually striking awareness and name-recognition campaign designed to generate referrals from local lawyers. The photographic image is a wedding cake, with the bridefigurine on the top tier. She is alone, with tiny footsteps leading away from her and off the cake. In a split second the image says “divorce,” and connects the happiness of the wedding to the poignant result.
Tag Line
“We can’t protect your heart. But we can protect your rights.”
Advertisements
The text of the wedding-invitation-style ads include:
My husband is a bastard.
I never asked for anything but his attention.
I didn’t demand a big house.
Or a fancy wardrobe.
Or exotic vacations. None of that.
All I wanted was for him to have fun being a family.
Just enjoy being with me and our beautiful boy.
That is not a demanding wife.
That is a perfect wife.
For my next wedding, I will elope.
I will have a small, intimate ceremony.
I will wear a chic black dress.
I will write my own vows.
And I will marry a man who doesn’t value a career over a family.
Or love money more than me.
On this point, I will not compromise.
I will not compromise love ever again.
