Ah, it’s nice to see a bit of old-fashioned Ludditism back on the legal agenda. After all this talk in marketing circles about blog-this and tweet-that, extranet-here and digitise-the-other, Linklaters has taken a look at some actual audience research and decided that what people want is a good old-fashioned print brochure.
What arguably makes this surprising is that they’re not talking about croaky old clients born before the Boer war, but young, spritely kiddies looking for traineeships.
According to the report in The Lawyer, the research revealed that student audiences actually prefer a printed recruitment brochure that they can carry around and scribble on, rather than an ethereal alternative which is tricky to navigate, scroll through and print off.
Are there are any lessons here? Certainly, it’s an ever-timely reminder that asking the audience is rarely a bad idea in corporate communications. Second-guessing preferences is all very well, but if you only listen to fellow marketeers and their revenue-hungry suppliers you might get a slightly wonky view of what the world is looking for.
So maybe with channels – not just recruitment – there’s a case for standing back and taking stock. Which will get more business? A blog or a well-written personalised letter? (The answer, of course, might well be both.) Which will staff take more notice of – an under-pruned intranet or a decent presentation in the restaurant? What’s the best writing tool to take into meetings – an iPad, or a nice yellow legal pad?
Here at TFI, we’ve decided to seize this initiative and go back a century or two. Next week: a treatise on buggy advertising, and how sandwich boards could work for you.
