Creative and Edgy Attracts

I'm so behind in blogging. Seriously. And I know I don't actually have to tell you that. The beauty of blogs is that you, the reader, don't really know all the things I've been meaning to post and haven't yet. Except that, um, now you know.

So now that I've blown that facade completely, let me share some things worth checking out!

1. The all-around BEST website legal disclaimer you've ever seen (you'd sort of expect that from a law firm, but JUST WAIT...) is that of Valorem Law Group. Exactly what I love about Pat Lamb...

2. We've been looking at a lot of career pages on professional firm websites and absolutely LOVE the presentation of the interactive office walkthrough over at Quinn Emanuel.

3. We also love the MySpace approach over at Choate! My favorite is the bouncing ball video.

4. And would you expect anything less than edgy humor and creativity from a law firm that's comfortable with the nickname "MoFo"? I think not. I love their @$%#@! {Pigeonholed} page and their Why Mofo? page

Have you noticed these are all law firms. Ahem. Okay accountants, time to relax and let your creative juices flow!

Contrast the above with this type of video from PwC (who does do some edgy stuff, too) but you'll see their message is good but they are totally serious and low energy. Hmmm.

Any that you like?

Comments

[Wendy Nemitz]

Michelle, I love this post. I told a higher up in an accounting firm yesterday that ads can be SAFE or they can be GOOD. Safe (read boring) is very expensive because you have to buy so much ad space to gain mind space. Good is cheap because creativity delights and sticks with people.

Having people at the firm "react" to the creative means that it evokes some emotion -- always a good thing when you are trying to persuade.

The whole Choate creativity should win a million awards. I point to their stuff (we did not do it but I wish we had) to show people what is possible when SAFE is not the first consideration.

Love your blog! Thanks.

[Michelle Golden]

So true, Wendy, I totally agree that safe = boring. People enjoy their senses being stimulated...we can see this evidenced in all the emails that go round and round containing funny, silly or really creative stuff...or links to it.

It's so viral when a firm does something cool--links to it spread like wild-fire! And 99% of the appreciation is from the firm's peers and competitors thinking, wow, I wish we'd thought of that... Tell us that a highly creative campaign (even geared toward prospective clients) doesn't have recruiting value! Ha! :-)

Thanks for reading Wendy, hope you're thawing out in St Paul!

[Brenda Richter, CPA]

Not very edgy, but at least they did videos:

http://www.windes.com/careers/careers.aspx

[Bill Kennedy, CA]

Hi Wendy,

Just as bloggers get behind, readers do to. Just caught this post. So true! Accountants need to be more creative (Oops am I allowed to say that now that the Certified Management Accountants have trademarked "creative accountant"? - Check it out at http://CreativeAccountants.org/)

Bill