It’s tempting for comms to play it safe and blend in with the corporate crowd. It’s also the biggest mistake an organisation can make.
Technology disruption. Economics. Geopolitics. Fragile supply chains. Climate change. We live in uncertain, even dangerous times. No wonder that many business leaders are spooked and their comms teams risk averse. They play it safe and are reluctant to say anything distinct. Instead, they attempt to blend in with the crowd – even when an issue directly affects their company and industry.
The result is a deluge of limp, low impact content – brimming with the buzzwords of the day to camouflage commoditised thinking; it’s not thought leadership but the equivalent of salted caramel or plain vanilla on a restaurant menu.
Even worse, what might seem to be a safe approach will undermine their business. While our world has not reached peak content, it is definitely close to peak attention, so buzzword messaging will go unnoticed as it makes organisations sound like their competitors.
As the Edelman LinkedIn 2024 B2B Thought Leadership Impact Report shows, it takes powerful, bold and original thinking to stimulate demand for a company’s products and services. And this is true for any audience – whether you try to reach consumers, business customers or stakeholders in politics and civil society. Strong thought leadership is seen to be more trustworthy than any marketing material or product sheet.
This is not just about getting buyers off the sidelines; it’s also about building trust in an organisation and what it stands for. Even worse, failure to stand out in the deluge of identikit content gives up-and-coming competitors all the white space they need to make their mark and get invited to pitch for business. As our report shows, more than 75 percent of decision makers and C-suite executives say that a piece of thought leadership persuaded them to research a product or service that they were not considering previously. Nearly two-thirds say that thought leadership made them realise that they were missing out on significant business opportunities.
One reason why some organisations fail to make their mark is that their executives and subject matter experts don’t make the time to communicate and explain their vision. They focus on making a better product or service, which is great – but what if they make something awesome but fail to explain properly how they can make a difference for the world around them? In other words, what if an organisation’s thought leadership is mere navel-gazing and fails to connect with the outside-in perspective of customers and stakeholders?
There’s a quote – ascribed to (and claimed by) many: ‘People don’t care about your company or your products and services, they care about themselves’. This insight is not the starting point of good thought leadership; that has to be rooted in a company’s vision, innovation and values. However, taking the outside-in view must be the starting point of all good communication. It’s through the outside lens that an organisation has to explain what it does and what it stands for.
This is not just about sounding better, it’s about being better at doing business. Nine out of 10 decision makers say that they are more receptive to sales and marketing from companies that consistently produce high-quality thought leadership, while 60 percent say that good thought leadership can persuade them to pay a premium. Setting aside executive time to help produce strong thought leadership is also an important defensive play. Seventy percent of C-suite leaders say that good thought leadership made them question whether they should continue working with an existing supplier.
Now I would obviously say that, but it’s true: a DIY approach to thought leadership may struggle to work. Having a friendly outsider robustly challenge your ideas, road test your messaging and help you to resonate your vision with your audiences can make all the difference. Whether you are a market leader or an ambitious start-up, taking your thought leadership beyond the ‘safe’ buzzword bingo is one of the best investments that a company can make.
Tim Weber is Managing Director and EMEA Head of Editorial, Edelman
