Every picture tells a story…

Every picture tells a story.  The photo above is no exception.  So sit back and listen to the story of this photo.  You won’t be disappointed (I hope).

The photo above accompanied an article on the front page of the Auburn Citizen yesterday.  The article was about the billboard.  Recognize those guys in the billboard?  Yup, that’s us.  In our one and only billboard.

Before I tell you the story behind the billboard, let me tell you why we have only one billboard.  Generally, we under-spend our rivals on advertising by a long shot.  That’s because we get most of our cases from our network of referring lawyers and prior clients who love our results.  We don’t need to advertise as much as those other guys.  But we do like to get our name out there a little.

Now back to the story:  Why would our only billboard hit the front page of Auburn’s local newspaper?  Let’s do a multiple choice test on that:  (A) because the Citizen was reporting on one of our big verdicts; (B) because our billboard won a prized Best Personal Injury Lawyer Billboard Design contest; (C) because the building our billboard stands on is about to be ripped down; (D) because the billboard was erected a day before the City of Auburn passed a moratorium on new billboards.

If you guessed A, B, or C you were wrong.

Here’s the story.  The Auburn City Council voted last Thursday to impose a six-month delay on new billboards in anticipation of prohibiting new billboards for good.  But our billboard was erected the day before the Thursday ban. Our timing was perfect!  We got the billboard up right under the wire. And it was not planned!  A pure coincidence!  We had no idea the City was contemplating a billboard ban. We found out through the Citizen article after our billboard was up.

Why is the City banning billboards?  The City apparently believes  billboards clash with Auburn’s “urban and historic character.” We get it.  Billboards clutter the cityscape.  They are generally not pretty. But they work. And we erected this sole M&S billboard on the rooftop right next to our office, so it’s got special meaning for us.  It’s like our welcome mat, our “HERE-WE-ARE” sign.