"Thank you so much for your help on our strategic plan roll out! It was a success and I’m thrilled to say we gave the last presentation today. The firm loved the Renegades video and in fact we are already looking at how to share more broadly. Appreciate the late nights, flexibility and your patience with us. Look forward to the next project."
Lindsey McReynolds
Chief Client Relations Offices, Schwabe
About the Client
Schwabe, Williamson & Wyatt is a woman-led law firm on the West Coast with over 176 attorneys in eight cities. They offer a broad spectrum of business legal services focused on a handful of industries. At the time of writing they are the seventh largest law firm in the Pacific Northwest and the second largest in Oregon.
Project Goals
Each year the firm holds an all-attorney offsite retreat that gathers everyone in one location. The event has to have a high production value and be an annual highlight for the company. Their marketing team hired me to brand the event with a visual theme, and help create an event that would be "worth it" to an elite audience of highly in-demand lawyers. The event had to be completely captivating.
I created a culture video, a "get them pumped" video, animated slide presentations, logos, branded swag, event materials, copywriting, custom illustration, and email marketing.
Challenges
The audience was incredibly time-sensitive. Since they bill by the minute, any minute that was not engaging or entertaining could be seen as a waste of their time.
Due to this being the legal industry, all communication materials needed to be carefully scrutinized by their team.
Presentation materials had to accommodate last-minute changes from multiple people at different locations.
Mid-way through the project, COVID restrictions resurfaced and I discovered the in-person retreat would be entirely virtual. Surprise!
Solutions
I created two videos: a "get pumped" music video, and a culture video.
For what I'm calling the "get pumped" video, I rewrote the lyrics to Uptown Funk to be entirely about lawyers and recorded the vocals with a singer. I created a karaoke video, and worked with a videographer to shoot their leadership singing in costumes. The result was a hilarious music video with rallying lyrics and leadership staff camping it up - it was a hit. Due to privacy concerns for their staff I'm unable to share that video.
I created a culture video that combined B-roll footage on our Rock n Roll theme with staff photos, drawing parallels between "banding together" and their company culture. Because this video only aired internally, we used a popular rock song however I don't have rights to share it for promotional purposes so the video is shared here without sound.
Since the event was virtual, everyone was mailed swag items before the virtual event and presentations were very animated and interactive.