This is not your nontraditional parental figures’ employment law company
12/10/21 | Written by Bob Coursey
I’m fascinated by what makes an ad effective.
I realized this about myself in my late teens/early 20s. Like most people, this was the time in my life when I became, at least legally speaking, an adult, and started thinking about what the hell I was going to do for a career.
For me, this period coincided with my peak Stephen King fandom years. So perhaps unsurprisingly, my first stab at picking a “real” job was to be “a writer.” Not that I really had any idea what that meant. What I wanted it to mean was that Stephen King was going to somehow hear about me, be touched by what a fan I was and impressed by my latent horror writing talent, invite me to become his mentee, and we’d spend hours every day sitting in a room in Maine somewhere in our little two-man writing club, occasionally putting out a jointly-written book like he did with Peter Straub. Yes, this was as close to a career plan as I had at age 21.
I had some growing up to do, right?!?
And grow up I did, until, at around age 21 and a half, I realized I had gotten caught up in the folly of youth thinking it was a realistic career path to say I was going to become a horror writer. It was then that, thanks in large part to my (still) friend Brandon and my (still) Dad (stories for another time), I had the brilliant idea to combine the way of the artist (which I absolutely was in my own mind) with a “real” job and become a copywriter. (Sidenote: When I first heard this term, I heard “copyrighter” and imagined someone sitting in a windowless office processing copyright applications all day, which didn’t sound at all enticing to me.)
The problem was—I still fancied myself a writer a la Stephen King. Macabre and terrifying (as opposed to horrifying, for all you King fans) and all. I still remember one ad I wrote in my journal. I think it was meant to be a car ad. I remember it involved a car with a nice family inside of it plunging off a cliff and exploding in flames below. I never submitted that ad idea to any car company. There’s an alternate universe out there in which some lucky car company used my ad and made millions. No, there’s not. No one likes dead families in advertising. I probably would have been a crappy copywriter.
I digress. So, I like a good ad. I like the psychology and the art behind it. I like the mind manipulation. Because isn’t that really what all writing aspires to be? All art for that matter?
And that’s where “This is not your father’s Oldsmobile” comes in.
While I was mulling over the brand identity for Modern Age Employment Law, this tagline from a 1988 Oldsmobile ad campaign kept popping into my head. Somehow I felt like it captured this force I feel pushing me to create this company. I feel driven to create something new, something that has not been seen before, something that will surprise you.
I’ve worked at a big employment law firm before. This is not your father’s law firm. I’ve worked at Employers Council, a membership-based employers association. This is not your father’s employers association.
I wasn’t going to actually use the tagline, but I was trying to capture its essence in my branding.
Then a funny thing happened. As I was digging into the story behind the “not your father’s Oldsmobile” tagline, I learned that the 1988 ad campaign was a miserable failure for the company. Why? Because it alienated the company’s customer base (older people), without attracting the younger customers it hoped for.
So much for being an inspiration for my new company!
But you know what? I still think it’s a great tagline. It just wasn’t right for Oldsmobile. And by the way, did nobody notice that “Old” is right there in the brand name? They never had a chance!
Not to mention how sexist referring to “father” rather than “parents” or “nontraditional parental figure” sounds today.
So, bottom line--although I’m certainly not using the “not your father’s Oldsmobile” tagline (no copyright violation here! Toyota you can call off your lawyers!), I am taking inspiration from it. The intended spirit behind it aligns with what I’m doing by creating Modern Age Employment Law.
Get ready HR world. Your Cutlass Supreme awaits you.
Yep, I’d be a crappy copywriter.