The World’s Best Billboard?

A billboard for North Mississippi law firm Stroud & Harper, created by Memphis branding firm Tactical Magic, has been honored with a gold award by Graphis in an international creative advertising competition.

As part of its mission to recognize “The Best of International Visual Communications,” Graphis will include the billboard in a hardbound book, Graphis Advertising 2008, to be published in October.

Tactical Magic was the only local firm to be recognized in the show, which also featured international advertising firms (like BBDO, Publicis and Saatchi & Saatchi) and big brands (like McDonald’s, Panasonic, Target and VISA).

The winning billboard is simple and striking, featuring only a large banana peal, the headline, “STROUD & HARPER INJURY LAW,” and a phone number. It’s part of a two-board campaign that includes a similar board with a wadded-up pink slip, touting “EMPLOYMENT LAW.”

“The purpose of the billboard series is to create a name awareness for our firm in our particular areas of practice,” states the firm’s co-founding attorney, Philip Stroud. “we also want to emphasize that clients do not have to travel to Memphis for legal help - we are right here in Southaven (hence the area code 662 phone number featured on the billboards).” 

Stroud’s partner and co-founder, attorney James Harper, explains their humorous approach to advertising, “We want to portray that we are not one of those “high rise” law firms – we’re not stuffy and unapproachable. To the contrary, we pride ourselves in having daily interaction with our clients and working with them to achieve great results.”  Harper adds, “We enjoy what we do and we want the public to see that in our advertising.”

The billboard has been good as gold in more ways than one. Harper reports that the firm has seen a marked upswing in calls and business since running the billboards, “I even get calls from my competitors, complimenting our billboards, he says. “The upswing in awareness has been great for us.”