Corporate consequence, trust and thought leadership

Before I start on this blog post I have an apology.  I have been remiss in not posting anything for over a month.  I promised myself that I would try and post once a week and in the main I have achieved that but client matters have got the better of me of late and for a period even my sacrosanct morning exercise regime went out of the window.

I’m happy to say I’m back with renewed vigour and a healthy, new respect for those bloggers who do manage to blog regularly.

Corporate consequence

We live in an era of corporate consequence and there is no better example than BP right now.  Companies are increasingly being held to account not only how they bring their products to market but how they source their materials, their environmental and social impacts and even the way they market their products.  Even the consumer is becoming more responsible in who they choose to buy from and which products they purchase.

Not only is the consumer becoming more responsible but they are also wielding a lot of power in terms of their interactions with their favoured or not so favoured brands.  That power comes courtesy of a wide variety of social media channels online.  The result for many companies is that they are battling to imprint that most valued brand attribute on their publics - trust.

Trust

For years the professional services firms have realised that in order to gain the trust of their publics they had to engage with them in a way that went beyond merely selling them a service.  They had to share openly their insights and their knowledge.  They had to do this over and above the products and services they delivered in order to differentiate themselves and in the process earn the confidence and trust of their market. 

For many, this has been a sound way to establish their credibility underpinning the sales process to these prospects.

In many instances it has been thought leadership best practice.  It has taken time, investment and patience but it has paid off for those who have done it well and for those who have defined a clear position for themselves.

The thought leadership lessons from professional services companies

From within these professional services firms lies the clue for other companies - lessons on how to identify and forge a thought leadership position for themselves; lessons on how to take your thought leadership to market, and; lessons in how true thought leadership can build trust with their target publics and thus the ultimate accolade, brand loyalty.

Today potential customers/clients are less likely to become so unless a high level of trust has been established.

Go back to your values

I come back to a very well known crisis, the Johnson & Johnson Tylenol case.  Few people know that at the time J&J did not have a crisis plan in place.  Instead, in the face of enormous pressure, the CEO used the values of the company to guide his decisions and to this day the way the Tylenol crisis was handled is used an example of how to do it right.

What relevance does this have to thought leadership?

The same principle applies.  Meaningful, long-term thought leadership positions need to be informed by the values of the business.  If they don’t they run the risk of being seen as inauthentic spin and a thinly veneered attempt at a false consumer friendship. 

Marketers are going to have to work a lot harder at winning business because customers are demanding better reasons to buy from you, they are more thoughtful about their purchase and, in many instances they are buying with a conscience.

Well researched, consumer focused thought leadership campaigns have the ability to circumvent these issues by tapping into the real needs of the client or the customer and showing that you care about their lives and the issues they face in their lives and that you are prepared to provide information/services/support/products that show you understand. 

Smoke and mirrors as democracy goes up in smoke

For those who read my thought leadership views regularly and for those who stumble across this on my blog this post is highly unusual – it has nothing to do with thought leadership and is a very personal view on the Australian government’s announcement today about cigarettes appearing in no name brand packs. 

Yes you heard right.  It could have gone down well as a good April Fool’s joke but sadly it isn’t.

Now don’t get me wrong.  I’m not a smoker, to the contrary, I’m anti smoking.  But this has nothing to do with smoking, rather it has everything to do with the rights of individuals to choose, the rights of brands to be brands and the rights of businesses to responsibly produce and market their brands.

If the government can get away with this the question has to be where does it stop?  Are we going to be drinking no name beer and wine in the future and how about no name fast food?

What right does a government have to single handedly turn a perfectly legal industry into an amorphous, plain vanilla mass?  Have they really thought this through?  What happens when businesses close shop in Australia as some inevitably will and potentially thousands of jobs are lost? 

I am well aware of the reasons about reducing health risks to individuals and the burden on the health system, etc.  But for it to come to this is a gross admission of failure on the part of the government to address the issue.  Alternatively it smacks of the influence of an inordinately powerful, small health lobby group with their own grant-driven agendas.

This is heavy handed governance as its worse – it is nothing short of draconian and a government that resorts to draconian measures is a desperate one.  It is a government that has either lost touch or one that is putting up a smokescreen to hide other shortcomings.

When did Prime Minister Rudd and Minister Roxon ask the Australian public about this and what were their views?   As a non-smoker violently opposed to smoking I am appalled by this action and I would hazard that there are many more people out there who, like me, see this an assault on our civil liberties.

I truly hope that the industry takes the government to court on this one and wins.

Will the Australian public roll over on this and let Big Brother take further hold over what we can and can’t do in our every-day lives?  Time will tell.   

What are your thoughts on this?

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