Archive for November, 2009

Why companies struggle with thought leadership and individuals flourish

If I asked you to think of three thought leaders, who springs to mind?  For me it is inevitably a handful of individuals as opposed to brands or companies. Even if I think of the question with my corporate hat on I come up with the individual’s names who represent those companies – Richard Branson, Mohammed Yunus, Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, Anita Roddick, etc.

 
Why do companies battle and individuals flourish when it comes to thought leadership?

 
Perhaps the answer lies in research conducted by Bliss PR in June this year www.blisspr.com/. The study entitled Social Media Landscape for Consulting Firms analysed 46 management consulting firms and found that not only did most of them make it challenging for clients and prospects to identify and directly engage their thought leaders via social media but most didn’t actively champion their thought leaders.

 
Furthermore the study found that 30% of them failed to clearly identify any thought leaders at all.

 
I believe this issue is the result of three corporate afflictions and an extra cultural dimension peculiar to the Australian market:
1. Unless you are the founder (Branson, Gates, Yunus, Buffett and Roddick) companies are loathe to invest time and effort in a thought leader champion because of the risks i.e. he or she leaves to set up on their own, they become a target for the competitors, etc
2. Companies are also wary of the making the individual bigger than the brand
3. Unless it is the CEO or managing director politics means it could be corporate suicide to develop a higher media profile than them
4. Finally, and this is the one peculiar only to the Australian market, you have to deal with the ‘tall poppy’ syndrome. Simply put this means that people are loathe to develop too large a profile for fear of being cut down to size by those around you – hey every culture has its peculiarities.

On the flip side individuals are more inclined to become thought leaders for the following reasons:
1. They are often hungrier than the large corporations
2. They keenly understand the need to differentiate themselves from their competitors
3. Many of them are already experts in some area of their field
4. They are more open to engaging with and sharing insights and information with their audiences
5. They are personally close to their customers or consumers – no customer care department here, they are the customer care department
6. They are normally passionate about what they do
7. They are prepared to take risks
8. They are courageous – after all they did start their own business.

Big business continues to grapple with how they can own a space and connect with their audiences in an authentic way. A way in which they truly share information and insights with their customers over and above the typical product or service pushes on which most campaigns predictably focus.

 
I take my hat off to those brave companies who have taken the plunge – they have and are still reaping the rewards. I say brave because someone has to make the decision to break the mould. Someone has stand up and say we are going to do things differently around here. It takes courage to do that.

 
Finally, I leave you with this thought. The McKinsey Quarterly Report of June 2009   http://tiny.cc/p21vQ  entitled Building corporate reputations says that that organisations will need to enhance their listening skills and reinvigorate their understanding of and relationships with critical stakeholders and go beyond traditional PR to successfully activate a network of supporters.

It is precisely for this reason that companies need to focus their efforts on powerful, long-term, values-led thought leadership campaigns.

Does one quick campaign = true thought leadership?

The Dove Real Beauty campaign classic long-term thought leadership - no quick fixes here

There are two types of thought leadership and I’m not sure that the one even deserves the description.

The first is what I term quick-fix or short-term thought leadership and is often confused with true thought leadership. This is the great creative idea or innovation that is relevant only to one campaign or product and it here today gone tomorrow.

It is an idea that has no longevity beyond that particular campaign and while it may set your brand apart from the others for a moment in time it doesn’t necessarily make you a thought leader.

Advertising and short-term PR campaigns are good at achieving this and you see these campaigns all the time.  Some are good and some…well let’s just say that thought leadership is probably way too generous a term to apply to these campaigns.

I stand to be corrected but my view is that true thought leadership should be a far broader, longer-term positioning for a company or its brands.

True thought leadership is about attaching an authentic value to your brand or company which validates the image, preference, influence, reputation or brand-purchasing decision because it links in some way to the issues which are important to your consumers’ everyday lives. These could be as wide ranging as education, social issues, philanthropy, social responsibility, environment, health and infrastructure.

It is about delivering to these customers a value, information or point of view which says to them: “These guys get me, they get the environment and they get the social factors important to my life. I feel good in making this purchase, I feel good about this brand.  I trust this brand.”

If a customer inherently feels these attributes in a brand it not only develops brand loyalty but it also generates excellent word-of-mouth.

To do this I believe takes time. 

Quick fix rules

Unfortunately we live in a corporate world dominated by what I term ‘quarterlyitis’. 

This is a world dominated by quick turnaround projects, quick fix solutions and immediate results.  Not only are listed companies afflicted by this in terms of their reporting and the scrutiny of analysts but marketing teams and PR teams suffer the same pressure.

This often results in what many may claim to be thought leadership campaigns but which in reality are merely one-off, innovative PR tactics that may or may not fall under a broader communications strategy.

I’m sorry but I think thought leadership is a whole heap more.  It’s strategic in its nature and builds the reputation of your organization or your brand as a thought leader over time.

Thought leadership is powered by three key principles

I reckon when you boil any thought leadership idea or campaign down it ultimately rests on three key principles.

1.         It is a public relations rather than an advertising exercise

In order to truly take hold, thought leadership needs to be driven first and foremost by PR. Advertising and other marketing interventions can and, where possible, should support thought leadership, but the very nature of advertising’s bought space negates this medium as a driver of thought leadership. Only PR can truly create buy-in and sustain a thought leadership position for a brand.

Why do I say this? Because thought leadership is about sharing information, it is about engaging with an audience through delivering content via channels such as print, radio, television, websites, research, white papers, discussion forums, speaking opportunities, stakeholder engagement strategies, books and events.

It is about conversations with rather than sending messages one way to your audience.

I have seen thought leadership campaigns combine these elements in such a way that it has been able to influence and change behaviour of the target audience – surely the ultimate goal of any thought leadership campaign.

On its own, advertising cannot do this, but it can work very effectively in conjunction with a broader communications campaign if used strategically, at the right time and using the relevant channels.

2.            It is about sharing information or content

While thought leadership is about sharing information, this is anathema to some brands. Many corporations are, by nature, secretive and hold their intellectual property or product/brand information close to their chests. How often have you heard a client or you own company say: ‘We cannot tell them that. We cannot give that information away to our competitors.’

No one’s asking you to give away your ‘Coca-Cola formula’, but very often the information that companies are so precious about hanging onto can be found out there anyway.

Corporations with this attitude are rarely thought leaders. Thought leaders are refreshingly candid and they understand the bigger picture and where they and their brands fit into their consumers’ lives.

They understand their consumers and want to add value or insights to their customers’ lives beyond merely selling them a product or service. They often believe passionately in what they do or the space which they occupy, and they feel a moral or social responsibility to deliver something of value to the community in which they sell.

They understand that today merely selling a product is no longer good enough. For their brands to survive in the medium- to long-term they need to deliver value beyond their product benefits.

Brands with this sort of abundance mentality are prepared to engage with their stakeholders and share information and insights, and literally expect nothing in return in the immediate future. Their return on investment is in building trust and loyalty, and through this, positioning their brand as the leading choice.

Consumers are changing and so are the ways they make their purchasing decisions. They are demanding more from a company and its products. There are strings attached and they are best defined by the question: ‘What are you giving me or doing for me, my kids, my life, my community, or the environment?’

The companies that grasp this and can give satisfactory answers will be the ones that set themselves apart from their competition.

Thought leadership is precisely about creating an environment in which a company’s customers choose its brand because of what it stands for or because the position it has taken on an issue sets it apart from its competitors.

3.         It should aim to produce a sound business outcome

While thought leadership need not, and often does not, focus directly on selling a brand or service, it should still aim to produce the best possible business outcome for the long-term reputation and standing of that particular brand or company.

I love Dana vandenHeuvel’s analysis of this.  He says that you take a point of view to the market in order to gain share of voice in that sector or industry so that you can drive greater share of mind and ultimately greater share of market.   

The power of thought leadership lies in influence. If correctly targeted and structured, it is a potent tool for influencing a particular audience.  Your aim should be to become known as the expert or the ‘go to’, trusted source of knowledge or information in that particular area.

When you are recognized as the thought leader in your industry it does a number of things:

§         Creates ongoing, meaningful dialogue with your audiences

§         Delivers greater share of voice in the industry and as a result, greater share of mind over your competitors

§         Increases the profile of your brand

§         Delivers pre-qualified leads

§         Creates a set of customers who have already experienced your ‘value’ and who have ‘bought’ into your ideas before physically buying

§         Leads to less price resistance and a shortened sales cycle

§         Enhances the reputation of the brand/company as a leader in its field