Compromise with Legal?

Compromise with Legal

Tom Fishburne started drawing cartoons on the backs of Harvard Business School cases. His cartoons have grown by word of mouth to reach 200,000 business readers each week and have been featured by the Wall Street Journal, Fast Company, Forbes, and the New York Times. He draws many concepts from his experience in the business world:

“A friend told me recently that if she listened to her lawyers on a new product launch, the packaging would be blank. Marketing and legal are often the functions with the greatest friction. A legal review of an idea is akin to running the gauntlet. There is inevitably risk in any idea. Removing the risk entirely can sand the edges off the idea. Yet much of this tension is a result of how the relationship is set up. I recently talked to a brand manager for [a company that]….puts out some of the most risqué creative of any mainstream brand….I asked him how they got their more controversial ideas…past their legal department. He said that the key was in having the legal department help create the ideas in the first place. He tried to get the lawyers to think of themselves as marketers on the marketing team. In helping originate the ideas, they came to the work with greater enthusiasm.”

Check out “Compromise With Legal” and see more of Tom’s work and subscribe to his blog and newsletter today at the marketoonist blog