Marketing case studies – Digital thought leadership campaigns

February 17, 2025|Accountants, Kim's Blog, Lawyers, Marketing, Strategy|

I’m a little late in preparing an overview of these two excellent digital campaigns that were presented at the Home – PM Forum webinar in December. Thanks to Stefanie Jones of Wales – PM Forum for chairing the session. It’s interesting to compare and contrast the approaches in legal and accounting marketing. PM Forum members can watch the hour webinar here: Digital thought leadership campaigns that grow firms. Marketing case studies – Digital thought leadership campaigns at Menzies and Withers Worldwide.

Nicky Purnell, MBD Director, Menzies (accountants) “The Greatest Leap”

Menzies, with over 700 people, has a turnover of around £70m. There are 11 people in the marketing and business development team. This research into the views of 500 business leaders was the firm’s largest brand building campaign. The campaign has been running for six months.

Objectives of the campaign

Next step in the “Brighter Thinking” story. Earlier stages of the brand campaign are explored in this November 2023 post Case studies: Marketing and Business Development at law
Build the brand position
Target larger clients – with thought leadership
Produce a positive campaign that supports business
Be bolder – stand out from the competition

Purpose of the campaign

See the bigger picture
Multichannel campaign
Position as trusted advisers
Strategy first
Longevity

Developing the campaign

10 brainstorm sessions with PR agency Diffusion were organised.

A key insight and inspiration for the campaign was “The greatest leap”. Businesses and individuals will always have a next step, or a transition point, where they want to try something new, pivot or take a positive leap forward.

Implementing the campaign

The first phase (six months) was to launch the B2B research report. This was based on interviews with over 500 business leaders from mid-sized to large companies considering pre-leap and post-leap phases.

The firm used Censuswide to pose 20 questions which were ranked, scored and supported with attitudinal statements. Three themes emerged: 3Ps – People, Performance and Planning and these were covered in a video.

They identified the main pain points (crises) experienced: Capital, Short-termism, Leadership, Culture, Resilience and Ambition. Ideas were clustered (focusing on the core areas to build marketing plans – leadership, business planning and strategy, international ambition, performance management and collaboration).

The first six months tactical plan (with outlines for the subsequent 24 months) was developed by the whole marketing team who worked together to prioritise four areas of focus:

Sector/service line tactics linked to the 3Ps and research
Spotify/influencer advertising pilot
Client video production – for social media promotion
Webinars, PR, blogs and thought leadership reports (70 topics linked to 4 areas)

The Greatest Leap | Menzies LLP

Campaign costs

£30,000 was spent on the report which had a PR launch in May/June 2024

£14,000 was spent on Host read – a business podcast (Niall Paterson). A one minute advert with Sky News Daily resulted in 694K downloads

£12,000 was spent on a digital advertising campaign focusing on adapting to business growth. This included £2,000 on Google ads and retargeting as well as a LinkedIn boosted ad campaign.

Results in the first six months

694,000 podcast downloads
140,000 LinkedIn impressions
30,000 views through Google ads
20% increase in web site traffic
Positive client feedback

Key lessons learned

Take the business with you (stakeholder engagement and buy in)
LinkedIn doesn’t work for all sectors (e.g. transport and logistics, retail)
Involve the whole marketing team
Consistency is key
Increase spend on retargeting in future
Plan your follow up

Nigel Sprunt, International Marketing Director, Withers Worldwide (lawyers) “Discourse”

Nigel joined the firm in 1999 and had led many research and advertising campaigns before. Withers Worldwide has 1,500 people led by 220 partners (45% women). It is in 17 locations, 100 jurisdictions and 65 languages are spoken.

Campaign objectives

The campaign was ultimately to shift brand perception – by using client stories and omnichannel campaigns. But in a way that preserved discretion that is core to the brand.

Perception lags reality so a core objective was to shift market perception to better reflect Withers today. To build the brand. And move away from common misconception of what private client means – and doing it in an innovative way. Previously the firm had served “old money” private clients – and it needed to attract clients with new money.

Making the law accessible and human is central to many of the firm’s proactive marketing campaigns.

A core belief was that people want to invest in people. Law firms are always marketing to people – not B2B or B2C – and not to faceless entities. We are all programmed to engage and connect with personal stories which chime with our interests and values.

Campaign strategy

The campaign focused on high net worth individuals (HNWIs) whether in the C-suite, as founders or in start ups. It used the firm’s unique selling proposition to focus on their personal journey in life and business and making an impact.

The campaign harnessed the power of storytelling. As it is hard to get people’s attention, stories were used at the start to harness the power of human connection. Subsequent thought leadership will keep growing.

The strategic North Star was that the firm wanted to stop talking about itself and start talking about its clients. And to avoid dilution, there was a need to focus. They wanted to put clients and contacts at the heart of global marcoms. To be curious. To get behind clients.

This was extended to hear lawyers talk on their biographies – and to bring issues to life.

Campaign implementation

They managed expectations internally to ensure people knew they were trialling new stuff.

A FT partnership provided leverage from a trusted, targeted and global brand to generate wider reach and uplift brand engagement.

In a recent FT campaign, an artist did paintings of famous people to accompany their stories – including:

Idris and Sabrina Elba
Dr Bea Bakshi, from NHS to an innovative AI cancer diagnostic
Rinaldo Brutico, green fuel for a new airship
Denica Riadini-Flesch, an economist with an Indonesian clothing brand
Yishan Wong, a Silicon Valley employee fighting climate change
Kathy Matsui backing ESG-savvy start ups

Financial Times – Partner Content by Withers

Campaign results

Eleven million people have seen the campaign. Whereas originally its market share of the Sunday Times Rich List was 8%, it is now 75%.

Over 80m reached across all digital touch points (2020-2023) – of which 61% were C suite and 27% in Europe
Brand uplift study on FT.com (two campaigns) resulted in FT readers being 8x more likely to say Withers is their preferred firm and 4x more likely to instruct Withers after reaching over 30 million people globally
Supporting content to Withers other channels provided further depth
Used us a poster child when influencing others to do thought leadership – which needed the inspirational stories

Lessons learned

There were challenges – it has not been plain sailing (e.g. identifying clients and gaining access through client partners was difficult although clients were more enthusiastic)
Budgets were under pressure
Finding the right focus and securing buy in took many months – Avoid canvassing large groups of partners, keep momentum with a core group of stakeholders
Convincing people to be bold is hard – Get senior people to support you from an early stage and navigate internal politics
Developing the right angles in the content – aligned with global themes and emerging trends – was challenging
Build a supporting content strategy – that is aligned to trends and client issues, not legal issues and topics
Plan campaign arcs and channels carefully, tailor content to channels
Campaigns are resource intensive – plan and manage pinch points
Build virtual campaign teams – with representatives from across the global marketing team