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21 Oct 2009
I never forget the first full length story my daughter wrote when she was about six or seven – she called it “The rat that lost its courage”. Forget about who moved my cheese, this rat didn’t even have the courage to go out and look for cheese.
It struck me on reflecting on my daughter’s story the other day that I along with many people with whom I have worked, seem at various times in our careers, to lose our courage.
Think about how often you’ve seen marketing, PR or brand teams compromising their work because of: insufficient budget; too much ‘political’ risk; lack of courage; taking the easiest or most reasonable path; too many other ‘things’ on their plate; fear of failure; adopting the safe route; being output focused rather than outcomes focused?
The question we as marketing, advertising, brand or PR professionals need to ask ourselves is how often we are brave with the work we do and the ideas we put forward? Sure some of us vacillate between brave and reasonable. But how many of us are truly courageous – brave with the advice given, brave with ideas and brave with implementation? How many of us have the strength to tell it as it is and to give hard-nosed counsel and strategic direction when required?
A true thought leadership example
The guys who came up with the Dove campaign for Real Beauty were brave. How many marketers or brand managers do you know who would give the green light for spending big on a campaign that doesn’t mention any of the company’s products on the flagship website for the campaign?
So the question is how we can interrogate daily the real value we add to our campaigns because it is no longer good enough to practice yesterday’s PR, brand, marketing and advertising strategies.
The impacts of a company’s social, environmental and political footprints are disappearing. On the contrary, the focus of all stakeholders on these impacts is growing and will continue to influence buying behaviour, purchasing decisions, perceptions of the brand and that much vaunted word of mouth.
Today we need to carefully reflect how we can add sustainable value to our consumers and the campaigns we run on behalf of our brands.
Thought leadership requires alignment with your consumer/stakeholder
As communicators we are in an enviable position. At no time in the history of marketing have we had the power to interact with a company’s audiences as now.
The advent of Web 2.0 and social media has seen a marked shift in the communication game. Consumers are not only interacting with brands directly but they have also become part of the media landscape.
Today, companies can communicate directly with their consumers and vice versa. Traditional media channels are no longer the only conduit to reaching an audience. Increasingly marketing is about communicating with, rather than to, the consumer. It is about participating in a dialogue with your consumers.
But consumers want more – they want to know what value you are add to their world and the society in which they live over and above merely selling them a product or service. And herein lies the opportunity for thought leadership as well as strategically relevant CSR campaigns.
I believe that this is the way companies will need to align with their consumers in the future. For consumers want more than a brand to merely sell them a product or service – they want to know that the brand gets them, understands their issues and is prepared to give something of value to them over and above the product or service they sell.
By being brave and spending time arriving at a great thought leadership position, you, your company and your brand will be able to create a compelling point of difference and add substantially more value to your campaigns and ultimately your audience.
4 Responses to “Thought leadership requires courage”
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Public relations professionals, inherently, should be leaders. That is because we are always advocating organisational change, so that the organisation operates more in line with stakeholders’ needs and wants, along with stakeholder change.
That’s the best way to ensure mutually beneficial, sustainable organisation-stakeholder relationships.
This is not easy to do. It takes fortitude and it obviously takes leadership. It is also very rewarding.
Craig I agree with you – it certainly takes fortitude and often people with vision to see it through but you’re spot on when you say it can be very rewarding.
I couldn’t agree more with the courage observation.
Sustainability, CSR, two-way symmetrical communication. All are part of the real world, these days, not an academic ideal. Organisations that don’t catch up and get with are going to fall behind in the loner term.
Wouldn’t it be nice if the energy companies would get this and see beyond their immediate bottom line/shareholder returns? There is a world out there that is struggling to breathe. You guys are choking it.
Craig, that’s why so many thought leaders come from the SME sector or their own businesses. They can’t rely on their size and know that they need to offer something different to the market place if they want to connect with their audience and stand out from the crowd. As result they are often more directly in touch with the issues facing their audiences and are able to adapt very quickly – I’m not sure many energy companies fit into this mould.