THOUGHT LEADERSHIP MARKETING: a Definition & Honest Critique

Not everybody is on board with Thought Leadership marketing.

I think we all know that when undertaken properly and with full commitment it tends to build durable associations between certain companies or individuals and certain areas of expertise or particular concepts or causes. This in turn drives awareness, trust, respect and, ultimately, (ethical) bottom lines.

Yet some commentators - and even the occasional marketing expert - take issue with either the phrase ‘Thought Leadership’ or with the very idea itself. So I think it’s important to address these criticisms and concerns.

For example, I’ve come across the unusual viewpoint that Thought Leaders are really just ‘Influencers’ and that the term is therefore redundant. For myself, this is problematic. Not least, it is perfectly possible to be an Influencer without involving any thought at all!

Influencers are paid (or gifted) to influence suggestible people to buy something (anything!) by targeting those who lack confidence, those who perceive others as more popular or credible than themselves, and who are willing to let others tell them what to buy and how to live. They aren’t leading thought – they’re leading insecurity. This is the very opposite approach to authentic Thought Leadership, in my opinion, and is highly cynical.

Secondly, it is common knowledge in marketing that we are past the peak of the Influencer trend. Consumers have wised up and Influencers no longer have the power they once had. So the broader marketing industry sells us ‘micro influencers’: how long until that trend also loses its effectiveness? (In addition there has never been any place for influence marketing in B2B.)

More surprisingly, I recently came across a marketing expert and academic who argues almost the reverse – that since all marketing is leading Thought, the concept is nothing special. I don’t doubt this person’s knowledge in general as an academic expert. But on this point I am confused. Marketing is usually only leading ‘thought’ about the company or product or service itself. It is highly self-referential and far more likely to be leading emotion.

By contrast Thought Leadership marketing leads thought about subjects other than the company or service or product itself. In fact, we could almost call it marketing by not marketing (except insofar as it is only a part of a broader marketing mix).

In fact I can’t think of any other form of marketing that is useful for people who may never buy the product or service, and which therefore gives value even if you never, ever engage with the company. Certainly advertising can be entertaining without buying the product (there are certain commercials that make me laugh out loud without ever once having purchased the product). But there is no other form of marketing I can think of that I would regularly engage with whilst having no need for the service … yet. (Of course that little word ‘yet’ is key. You do not know now who might need your services 5 years down the line.)

Nonetheless there is one circumstances in which I do see problems with Thought Leadership marketing – that is to say, when it is done badly, cynically or in a non-committal way. In all cases, it comes closer to Content and Content, that is, in its least successful form.

The Problem with the Concept of Content

There is still much confusion around the difference between the ideas of so-called Content marketing and of Thought Leadership marketing, with the usual definition of Thought Leadership being that it is simply longer and more in-depth than ‘Content’. There is also the idea that Thought Leadership involves an awful lot of ‘White Papers’ and e-books.

All of this is true, in a generic sense.

But it also misses the critical point which is about quality, authenticity and purpose.

When it first appeared, Content marketing was a fantastic idea. And it remains a fantastic idea when it is done authentically and well (nowadays, I’d argue the best Content marketing is image and video based).

But too much written Content went down a quality rabbit hole. This is even more potentially the case now when we can get Chat GPT to produce something that ‘sounds intelligent’ within a split second. And if your company is okay with that level of disconnect from reality (and worrisome questions of accuracy), then fine. But you have to admit it is merely mimicry, filler-content or simply ‘wordage’.  There is no thought involved, let alone Leadership.

The issue with the word ‘Content’ of course is that ‘content’ is what fills something else up. For example, as I’ve written elsewhere, the ‘content’ of a wineglass is, generally, wine, but you’d be hard-pressed to find a premiere vineyard that refers to their finest vintage as ‘Wineglass Content’. Nor would any company other than the most cynical bargain basement outfit create product purely to put into a well-packaged box.

Yet even those companies who feel they are well above this can tend to treat their Thought Leadership material and their own Intellectual Property in a similarly disrespectful fashion. For example, a company’s initial thought might be: let’s create a blog. Why? Because other people are doing it (or some marketing ‘guru’ told them to).

There is no real passion for the project and so it will be handled in similarly noncommittal fashion: an external writer will be hired not on the basis of their knowledge of marketing strategy, or editorial, or even the subject itself, but usually rather because they have some experience writing on a similar subject (and are also inexpensive). They will then be tasked with ‘producing X words, X times a week, on X subject’, usually with little to no contact with the people in the company who hold the keys to the company’s best ideas and finest thoughts, and within absolutely no strategy regarding the purpose of the blog or its intended readership.

Is this a reasonable way for a company to treat their IP (their finest thinking)? Would they treat their service or product with the same disdain?  Hardly. Yet the entire exercise too often becomes a cynical and half-baked manoeuvre. Companies then complain that their marketing endeavours have failed, when in fact they were simply not strategised in the first place, nor was the material produced with the levels of quality control you might expect from almost any other area of business.

A critique by definition involves looking at the pitfalls and worst aspects of any given Idea and as a proponent of Thought Leadership marketing it's essential to address these. In fact I honestly believe that Thought Leadership marketing campaigns undertaken badly or half-heartedly are not only not effective but also a very poor use of company resources.

None of this, of course, is a reason for those Companies or CEOs/Founders that would have done well with Thought Leadership to avoid it. How do you know if it's likely to be a fit? I can't guarantee 100% but the SLTLA forthcoming book Thought Leadership Marketing: A Concise Guide can give you guidance: for now, a great sign that you'll do well with Thought Leadership marketing is your own enthusiasm. Excited by the idea? Then its probably for you.

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