Thought leadership

By Fiona Czerniawska

The criteria we use to assess the quality of thought leadership – Is it saying something new? Does it attract and keep your attention? Is it credible? Does it provide some practical guidance? – were all originally designed to reflect the experience of the clients at whom it’s aimed. Similarly, all of the research we’ve been doing recently around the impact thought leadership is (or isn’t) having has been focused on understanding how external clients react.

Thought leadership is an important part of the marketing mix for many B2B organisations so it's not surprising that, in organisations where great content isn't being created by other people, marketing teams take the driving seat.

But while this level of involvement of marketing teams is understandable it can cause problems: for example, in our experience marketing teams usually recognise the need to get subject matter experts involved but often struggle to get more than a one-off interview with a smattering of consultants. And the process is usually evident in the end product. Signs include:

“The Apple what?” asks the sales assistant, blankly.

“The Apple Watch” I offer, assuming he misheard me. I am in the Apple store, after all.

“Apple doesn’t make any watches as far as I’m aware,” he says, apparently not having misheard.

“Oh. But when I was in your store in London they told me…”

“Would you be interested in having a look at the new iPhone 4”, he interjects, trying to be helpful.

“The iPhone 4?” I ask, confused. “I thought that was old. Aren’t we on the iPhone 6 now?”