Who would have thought that Bert from “Mary Poppins” might have had a career in law firm marketing?
Trantolo & Trantolo, a small law firm in Hartford, Connecticut that also has offices in New York and Massachusetts, has been cited for more than a dozen “unauthorized sidewalk advertisements.” Put on the pavement using either power-washing or temporary chalk over stencils, the firm legal services marketing innovation violated a city ordinance that banned such messages without written consent. Hartford Mayor Arunan Arulampalam told the media that the city has discovered at least 15 sidewalk messages promoting the firm. Unauthorized law firm promotion from the firm also appeared on 24 Hartford crosswalks before the West Hartford Department of Public Works powerwashed them into oblivion. I bet it looked sort-of -like at the end of the Chalk World sequence where Bert, Mary and the kids ride on merry-go-round horses, participate in a fox hunt and sing “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” and then the rain washes Bert’s pictures away.
One message with the firm’s name attached said, “Look both ways before you cross.” Who could object to that public service message? But the firm has “an angle.” As Bing Crosby told Rosemary Clooney in “White Christmas,” everyone has an angle. Well, lawyers and law firms, anyway. Trantolo & Trantolo explained that one by explaining that Hartford “has a serious road safety problem.”
“Working with an outdoor advertising company that has executed similar temporary sidewalk campaigns in cities across the country, Trantolo & Trantolo recently placed a series of temporary stencils throughout Hartford and West Hartford highlighting important local and statewide safety statistics,” says the firm. Trantolo & Trantolo also promised that it would remove all the messages ” at the end of its campaign.”
You have to give the firm’s marketing department credit for creativity. However, the stunt violates the Kantian ethics test of considering what the world would be like if everybody did it, or even every law firm. Thank goodness this stunt didn’t occur to Morgan and Morgan.
Ethics Alarms 
Chalk being one thing, I like the strategy of power washing a message into sidewalk grime. I don’t think that should be regulated in any way shape or form. If the city doesn’t like it, it can clean the sidewalks on a more regular schedule.
Here you go!
My first thought was, Ugh.
Then, that maybe it was a city campaign sponsored by T&T. Then when it highlighted broken city owned stuff, I realized it was unlikely.
Then I saw the mayor wanted to fine then, and my reaction was, yay!
The campaign was kind of obnoxious. Every sidewalk ramp had Trantollo and Trantollo’s name written on it. I never actually bothered to read one, once I saw it was an add.
Within a few days, all the chaulk was purposefully washed away. Never saw one of the powerwashed ones, but a slightly grimy sidewalk is not a safety hazard, nor particularly unsightly.
Both clever and unethical.
Wonder if their punishment will be more severe than the multitudes of they-are-not-really-illegal immigrants in this blue state.
Couldn’t help myself.
“However, the stunt violates the Kantian ethics test of considering what the world would be like if everybody did it, or even every law firm.“
Off to a tangent on this post, I am not a fan of this Kantian ethics test. Kant’s ethics test leads to conformism, constricting a person’s individuality and freedom of choice. E.g. parents may use Kant’s test to tell their children that they should marry and have children, because if everybody would stay single mankind would die out.
Society is richer because of creativity and a variety in individual choice. And now back to the law firm’s advertising campaign, technically they broke some rules and laws. They may even get punished for it. As long as the revenues generated by this ad campaign exceeds the penalties due to breaking the law, the advertising campaign may have been worth it for this law firm. I am aware that this is a non-ethical consideration.