Case study: What’s in a name?

Barnetts Solicitors’ sub-brand, clickconveyancing, won Online Service of the Year at the Legal Technology Awards 2007. It marks the culmination of a long process of evaluation and a desire to innovate.

By Joe Whelan, chief executive, Barnetts Solicitors

As consumers we are often asked which ‘brand’ we most associate ourselves with – or which are the ones that stick in our mind.

Companies across a wide number of sectors have all recognised the value of having a powerful brand, and they spend years and millions protecting and cultivating them. You only have to look at businesses such as McDonalds, apple, Virgin, adidas and orange, and the lengths they go to continually enhance the brand to appeal to current and prospective customers.

Each of those businesses wants to create an attraction and will have manifested brand strategies that ensure their organisations carve out a position in the marketplace. Everything associated with those companies will have to fit into a brand guideline that ensures the brand image/identity is maintained – and woe betide anyone who misuses it.

However, going back to the earlier point – ask anyone in the street to think of an instantly-recognisable legal brand and you’ll probably find them scratching their head, then only to give a name of the solicitor they have used before.

Ask the question to business people and they will probably offer a more informed response, but law firms are way down in the pecking order. A survey recently completed by Superbrands ranked Clifford Chance as the top legal brand in the UK – but only positioned it 240th out of 500 businesses. Surprisingly, the BBC was the outright winner, beating other super-businesses such as Microsoft and Google.

Can’t be copied

But the advantages of developing a brand go well beyond the implementation of a powerful marketing strategy that can help generate sales. Rather, an instantly-identifiable brand can create a relationship between a business and
the consumer and also add value to that business.

It is also something that competitors can’t match – they can try and replicate services and repeat investment in IT but a brand cannot be copied. As one American marketer commented, “A brand is the one thing you can own that nobody can take away from you.” Once the identifiable brand is created and carefully managed, competitive edge is enhanced too.

Since the relaxation in how law firms can market themselves there has been a noticeable increase in practices actively promoting their services. For most, marketing is implementing activities in the promotional mix – advertising; direct mail; sponsorship; and; public relations. Most marketing teams in law firms are now responsible for creating ‘brands’ that stand out and will encourage a purchase decision.

Enter the internet

Over a period of years, Barnetts has crafted a reputation and a brand for work carried out in the high-volume conveyancing arena, but this may not have the same appeal to people in the street who are just as important to the firm’s success.

Now we have also developed a sub-brand of the firm, which is centred around the growing use of the internet. Under the umbrella of Clicklegalservices.co.uk we have already successfully launched Clickconveyancing, Clickaccidents, Clickcommercial and ClickHIPs, with many more planned to follow. We are looking to establish Clickwills, Clickremortgages, Clickswitch among others.

Obviously the emphasis will be the establishment of ‘Click’ as a reference to the growing use of internet purchases. Who would have thought over ten years ago that you could buy a car, get a loan or even move house online? Those days are now upon us, and as more and more people gain access to the internet, demand for an instantaneous service is increasing.

Aware of this demand and the competitive nature of business today, we can all benefit from a clearly identifiable branded product or service. Through needs, requests and even demands, consumers are becoming more brand conscious. All the more ‘traditional’ brand-conscious sectors – such as leisure, fashion and automotive – are being forced to continue to brand heavily: devising newer, more appealing brands and sub-brands that encourage the consumer to make the purchase.

We hope to be one of the first law firms that will develop and offer a brand that will mean a lot of things to a variety of consumers; perhaps similar to the Virgin or easy brands that have been extended to cover a wider range of products or services. In fact, it could be argued it was Virgin that made financial services ‘sexy’.

However, what we can’t do is take it for granted that the ‘Click’ brand will appeal to everyone. We know some consumers won’t value it, but you can guarantee that most consumers look for innovation in a product or service – and that is something the ‘Click’ brand will provide.

This viewpoint is strengthened by the fact that a sense of uniqueness will add to a brand’s appeal and even value. Moreover, a new brand in a marketplace has a golden opportunity to trailblaze and mould consumers’ perceptions at the same time. The next stage is then to make sure the brand maintains its appeal when competitors follow into the marketplace, and that’s the hardest part.

Secondary support

We also want to ensure the Click brand has an effect on the Barnetts brand and vice versa. In fact, we believe that the two share great synergy and brand values, but there is a strong financial argument to support the fact one will benefit the other. We intend to develop ‘click’ as a secondary brand to the more core Barnetts brand, ensuring that Click inherits the firm’s reputation purely by association.

A boiled-down example of this would be for a consumer to view Click as a sister brand to Barnetts. Barnetts has a good reputation and provides a high-level service, so why shouldn’t Click? Obviously, we hope this works the other way where consumers come across the Click brand first, and where a product or service is not provided it is hoped the consumer will move across to Barnetts where the service is or could be provided.

Branding isn’t a process that should be undertaken lightly though. Those who do not research the area as we have may think that creating a brand is simply sitting around a table trying to conjure up a quirky name. A brand, or the process of branding, is the culmination of significant business issues, including:

Reputation. If the people or company behind the brand has a poor reputation, unfortunately the effort will fall at the first hurdle. Many have made the mistake of rebranding merely in an attempt to shake off a poor public perception;
Price. Getting this right is key. Is the brand going to be a ‘Stella Artois’ – reassuringly expensive and suggesting
higher quality? Conversely, being sold at bargain-basement prices may suggest a bargain-basement company;
Quality. A firm will suffer if the service is poorly delivered, as reputation is formed by vocal consumers. Everyone remembers bad service;
Differentiation. What’s different about your offering and brand? Is it unique? If so, the brand value or equity has significant value.

These factors were all explored at great length at Barnetts before reaching the decision to create a new brand. If the questions could not have been answered, it would have been misguided to invest time and money in a secondary brand that could neither have been supported, nor live up to consumer expectation.

Clicking into place

After this process, it was then time for the fun bit! Deciding on a name was not an easy task though, and the brand name has got to sum up the service and its quality, promote innovation, and yet also be easy to remember. Taking into consideration the brand values and constituents, we decided that Click was the best fit.

The name had to sum up the ease of use, reflect the main channel of distribution (the internet) and have an appeal to all sectors of the community. The name was also developed from the perception that with the internet the less ‘clicks’ of the mouse, the easier – and more convenient – the service.

Is it unique and will in stand the test of time? We certainly think so, as one of the ‘Click’ services, clickconveyancing, has now completed £2m worth of sales in little under a year. It also won the ‘online service of the year’ award at the Legal Technology Awards 2007. Success such as this then adds to the brand’s credibility in a cycle, and also has a positive effect on the Barnetts core brand.

An example of the success that we would like to emulate is that of Direct Line. When launched it might have been perceived in some quarters as ‘no frills’, but it has since matured, becoming synonymous with providing a high-quality service, and is now seen as a very reputable organisation.

Joe Whelan is chief executive of Barnetts Solicitors. He can be contacted at joe.whelan@barnetts.co.uk