Steve Nober at Mass Torts Made Perfect 2021
Mike Papantonio: (00:02)
I want to tell you one more thing about Steve that you need to know. He talked about branding. He says, why is it that some people can put their name on a national ad and it means something? Steve has started, because I asked him to start, a PR firm. And, let me tell you what this is about. You’re going to be able to talk him. He’s a vendor over here, he’ll go into details. We have worked with almost every major national PR firm there is, and none of them get it where it comes to lawyer issues. So, I want you to file something away. You’re getting ready to move into an area that’s different from the cat that’s spending time with auto cases or comp or whatever it is, and you’re getting ready to move into an area where a newspaper is dysfunctional as the corporate media has become.
Mike Papantonio: (00:59)
Hold that over here, they’ve become dysfunctional because they’ve fired their reporters. Investigative journalism doesn’t exist anymore. They’re owned by the major corporations. They respond to major corporations. They don’t really care who you are. They don’t even like lawyers. They’re always going to vote on the side of their advertisers. Now, back to branding. What if you are handling a case like, well, any of these things that you’ve just heard? What if you’re handling a case like paraquat and you are in your hometown and you know more about paraquat than anybody, and Steve’s job is to let that newspaper know that you are the person, you’re the expert talking about paraquat. So, all of a sudden you may have your auto practice, you may have your comp practice, but you’re in the newspaper looking like a giant killer because you’re taking on two of the largest corporations on the globe and you are the person, you’re the go-to person for paraquat.
Mike Papantonio: (02:06)
Let me tell you the next one. What if you’re doing Xeljanz, which I recommend you do, you want to be the expert in that area. It’s up to him to get you in front of the reporters. You can’t call the publisher of a newspaper and say, “Hey, I got a really hot story.” There’s a lot of problems. Look, I did national media for almost 20 years, MSNBC, CNN, Fox News. I was a liberal commentator. There would be times when in the middle of the… I’m in the small count, 10, nine, eight, seven, Pap, change your story because they didn’t want me talking about Bayer Corporation. Bayer had called them in between the Ts and when I’m getting ready to go on to talk about Bayer and a product that’s killing people. Merck, it doesn’t make any difference who it is. Advertisers control the media. It’s his job to get you through that wall to where in your hometown you are becoming the person to go to, and it’s going to matter in how you brand.
Mike Papantonio: (03:15)
You can’t do that with auto case. Everybody’s doing auto cases. Why are they going to call you about an auto case? But, they’re going to call you about something like hernia mesh because the hospitals are seeing hernia mesh left and right. They’re going to call you about something like CPAP because everybody’s using a CPAP machine. It’s his job to make sure he breaks through that for you. The only way you’re going to brand yourself is to do something extraordinary. Now, your story might appear in a local newspaper, but if he does his job, he spins it into SEO, the SEO world, where you’re talking about paraquat and when Google search is made, you’re there. I promise you, you can search every product we’re going to be talking about in this program, and my firm will be somewhere in the top three on SEO every time. Why? Because we understand the branding, we understand how branding works. You have got to understand that, and Steve, you’re going to have to help him understand that because you’re moving into an area now that it is perfect for you to brand.
