Archive for the 'In-House Challenges' Category

10
Apr
10

“Thought Leadership” – The New CRM?

By pendrywhite 2 Comments
Categories: In-House Challenges
Tags: , , ,

Thinkers aren’t leading…

The Marketing Director of a major professional services firm recently said to us that, “thought leadership is the new CRM for professional services firms, everyone is talking about it and hardly anyone is doing it…”

Thought Leadership is currently one of the most overworked phrases in marketing. It might be translated as “we need some press coverage on this topic”.

We have reviewed many marketing plans in which a stated objective is to achieve a thought leadership position in a particular market niche.

  • What does this mean in practice?
  • What are the benefits of thought leadership?
  • What are the key success factors in achieving it?
  • How does one go about becoming a thought leader?

In many businesses there is a latent potential to achieve the position of a thought leader. Professionals of all varieties often have great insight, way beyond their narrow technical specialisation, and they are good at, indeed paid highly for,  ’thinking’.

So why is more not happening? In a board meeting we only came up with a handful of examples where we could recall more than one action by the same organisation that might be called ‘thought leadership’ in building a position in a market niche.

What happens in practice… and why?

Everyone wants to be a thought leader but few really are. Thought leadership is usually nothing more than a book to be published, a survey to be publicised, maybe an event to speak at and probably a press release to be issued.

This is not thought leadership, it is the stuff of everyday PR, something to hang a story on for a brief flurry of media attention and, perhaps, to be blunt, to boost someone’s ego. This has its place but it is not thought leadership.

Perhaps we can find our feet here by asking why people feel the need to be thought leaders and what they should be doing to achieve that status? Well let’s start by defining the problem.

The fundamental problem is not that we often name one-off marketing initiatives “thought leadership’ but that, because well targeted issues are often treated just as a PR exercise, they have no wider plan in place properly to exploit the deeper levels of thinking that have taken place and wherein lies the value added.

Some mid-level marketeers or traditional PR Companies who are neither expert in the issue of concern nor in developing successful sustainable thought leadership campaigns often find it difficult to match the intellectual level of the ‘thinkers’. They are communicators and simplifiers in a situation where complexity and sophistication may be inherent in the message.

Most traditional PR companies are not particularly well placed to develop campaigns, although their traditional press contacts may be valuable.

This is not, of course, ‘stupidity’ or ‘laziness’ just as journalists are not ‘stupid’ or ‘lazy’ but only a reflection of the fact that media relations has historically required certain approaches to the management of information that tend to simplified narrative and cliche – as when everyone piles on to a green or CSR band wagon and the whole tribe of business goes hurtling down one track where the slogan comes to mean more than the underlying conceptualisation or any consideration of the consistency, qualifications, doubts and the caveats that are to be found in all serious thought.

Thought leadership requires effort, including, well, thinking … and that in turn is going to require some serious senior executive time.

We have observed, no names or pack drill, that some individuals who, often single-handedly, achieve serious profile for their organisation will often do so at the peril of their personal business sales targets, their position in the organisation or their domestic life, or all three.

It is unlikely that you will achieve thought leader status in your spare time … so, if “thought leadership” is a term in your marketing plan, quantify it as a cost, make an assessment of value and get the entire management on side.

There will be some element of leap of faith but thinking about thinking is a form of internal thought leadership in itself. But what about sources other than personal professional expertise?

Pulling material out of corporate or professional engagement with professional organisations or trade associations should be an obvious starting point. Often management does not see this pool of knowledge as a marketing resource but, instead, as a personal interest or a straight “pro bono” for the profession or the industry.

Despite some of the fluffy thinking in the last decade or so of CSR, the truth is that a duty to shareholders and partner priorities demands that there is no such thing as pure ‘pro bono’ on company or firm time. 

‘Pro bono’ should be integrated with a thought leadership mentality that positions the firm or company as top of the game – not just ‘we do good things’ but ‘we do good things because …’

Many trade associations, short of funds, are willing to jointly badge important work in recognition of the effort expended and this is a legitimate mutual exploitation so long as the trade association is not compromised with its other members.

Too often ‘thinking’ is shallow – little more than, say, yet another survey or series of articles. That’s OK, but lets just be honest about it and stop pretending it is more than it is. Journalists will roll their eyes at the survey and the public have learned to be cynical but, bluntly, it gets the column inches - yet it is not ‘thinking’ and it has little long term value. Thought leadership, in short, is deep!

Key sources and elements of thought leadership…

So, if you want to be a real thought leader and gather the benefits in brand building that this can produce, what should you be doing?

Genuine thought leaders as those who can influence future board or management decisions. They will tend to be the leading management thinkers or leading figures in an industry. You do have to have some serious track record here.

Most organisations are likely to target a specific issue or an industry that aligns with their business development programmes. They will be looking ahead to changes in technological innovation, society and trade flows and they will have a good weather eye on government legislation and regulation.

Firms of the scale and calibre of McKinsey may try and cover a broad spectrum of activities through its eponymous “Quarterly” but for most businesses the scope will have to be much more focused.

I have already mentioned trade associations. They carry weight where government policy and regulations are in play. The Institute of Directors had this reputation under Ruth Lea and in the context of a Conservative Government but has since gone a little off the boil.

Business schools may also add research capability and credibility to research-based projects. The level of talent in the leading Western economies is high and London’s financial and professional services community has its own specialist school on its doorstep in the Cass Business School.

The growing array of think tanks tend not be taken seriously by business, as they are not always seen as practical, though there are exceptions. If relations with most are dumped on the public affairs teams, some, like the Institute of Fiscal Studies, really do influence thinking at the highest levels. In short, if internal resources can’t or won’t speak, a commitment to external collaboration may well help deliver the goods.

The things that tend to make real thought leaders successful are also the things that count against most “wannabe” thought leaders. What are those things?

Real industry or issue specific knowledge, whether internal or collaborative, counts for everything. Good ideas, supported with research need to be matched to an understanding of the issues as they are important at board level. Senior management is busy - thought leadership should address a serious market or compliance concern.

The topics and issues chosen should thus be ones of importance to clients and potential clients or be issues that are of much wider public policy significance with impacts on business (although this requires much more sophistication in assessing the value of a particular position in the political climate of the day and the high speed at which the political agenda can move on).

For example, we monitor food security issues for a client and the degree of public policy concern has fluctuated radically (in PR terms) over the last eighteen months. Any thought leadership on food security would need to be carefully times to achieve interest on the upswing not after everyone has put it into their policy out-tray.

Thought Leaders must also bring an independent view on an issue, and not be leading into a sales pitch for their own benefit. That means giving a balanced commentary.

Professional services firms, for example, are frequently and embarrassingly blatant in how they present their `thought leadership’. Their sceptical audiences can be turned off. and the rest of us ‘cringe’.

More important, poor presentation or ‘selling’ actually detracts from the image of intellectual competence – if you are so dim as to think that the audience is going to take research as reliable when it is presented as a sales pitch, then it places all your claims at risk as unreliable. 

Even worse, since blatant sales do not work but indirect sales do, the thought leaders’ marketing aides usually fail to have a sales plan in place to exploit the potential that still does exist … Thought Leader should write and basks in the glow of appreciation as an independent commentator and the gnomes in the marketing department should get moving to link the material to client needs on the ground.

Thought Leadership is very practical stuff. No arcane references to Adorno or Aquinas, please. Thought leaders should be creative, innovative and provocative but they must do it from a foundation of reasoned argument and preferably empirical research as well as latest professional or industrial or consumer experience.

Audiences expect thought leaders to bring clarity and succinctness to their position, not waffle or legalistic technical jargon, the very things that some company spokesmen, by habit and training, are happiest with when talking to their peers. 

They must cover the angles of all the stakeholders affected by the topic. We recommend a version of the Stanislavski method, named after the great Russian actor – get inside the mind of the person you are talking to and ask what they want to hear about, not what you want to tell them. How does your knowledge relate to their emotional and practical needs (though not prejudices)?

Thought leaders should also plan to be around for a while, maintaining long-term relationships with their audiences – hence my very important point about calculating costs against value. They are not one hit wonders. Weak thought leaders usually publish, perform and then disappear. The value is far less than it would be in sustained engagement.

So if those are the factors that thought leaders are expected to deliver, how can you or your would-be leader become such a leader and reap real and tangible benefits?

Planning to become a thought leader?

Thought Leaders do three things well.

  • They raise the profile of an issue and deepen understanding .
  • They set the agenda with their industry peers.
  • They introduce new topics to the boards of potential and current clients in their chosen fields and they do these things over a prolonged timeframe.

They deliver sustained awareness, publicity, differentiation and added credibility to their organisation. This brings added power in the market place and enhances the environment for new business generation.

The acid test used by advertising agencies for advertising campaigns is relevant here. Does the idea have legs? Is it “buildable”? (If not, it still may be a good one-off initiative despite our concerns about such an approach.)

General rules of thumb are that organisations are more influential than individuals; commentators who tackle immediate issues are most valued; and those who maintain regular contact with their audiences are the most highly regarded.

That means that you have to exploit the full potential of the original and creative thinking that has taken place in a series of simple rules:

  • Think and plan beyond the initial PR burst
  • Think about the long-term purpose of the message to key audiences
  • Plan how to take the message to your audiences singly (particularly journalists who are key opinion formers), in groups and also to the mass market
  • Do it over a sustained period
  • Build it into your overall marketing and communications plans and activities
  • Keep thinking up to date
  • Recognize that the world is changing and the new social media provide a fast and influential channel for building, enhancing and refreshing your reputation and thinking – make sure you understand how this can help you, or get someone who does to help you!

If you build a position you need to reinforce and defend it, not open the door for the competitors.  Trust us, they will try to move in behind you and try to steal your territory if you do not keep clearing your path through the jungle.

To quote an old adage: Tell them what you are going to tell them; tell them; then tell them what you have told them. Then do it all over again, and again.

As marketing people you may be bored by this but most of your audience still won’t have heard your views even after a year!

So, thought leadership is marketing (not PR) and marketing for higher added value professional and business service firms should consider thought leadership as yet another weapon in the armoury.

Roger White is Managing Director of Pendry White Partnership, a strategic marketing and communications consultancy, serving professional services firms and international organisations. Roger was formerly Director of Corporate Affairs for PricewaterhouseCoopers and prior to that Director of European Communications for Coopers & Lybrand Europe.

01
Mar
10

Implementation: Rethinking the cost (and value) of rebranding

By pendrywhite 9 Comments
Categories: Communications Industry and In-House Challenges
Tags: , , ,

Occasionally we invite friends of Pendry White to contribute guest articles to Whiteboard, highlighting a best practice innovation in our own world of reputation marketing. We invited Gideon Wilkinson, Founding Partner of Endpoint, to share his thoughts on an innovative new approach to the complex issue of brand management and implementation

Anyone who has had anything to do with managing a brand knows it is expensive and complex when it is done right, and very expensive when done badly. Fortunately, a new discipline is making a consistent brand image across the whole business a much greater probability, with the added benefit of controlling costs and improving quality. Brand Implementation Advisers are beginning to play a critical part in the smooth rollout of new and revitalised brands, working alongside senior brand managers, creative consultants, and internal resources to deliver a brand that works, on budget and on time.

All too often we see senior management focus enthusiastically on the front end creative aspects of a new brand identity, a rebrand or even a simple brand refresh. But, when the glamorous bit is done, the truly critical phase, the physical implementation, becomes a ‘simple’ operational matter left to others.

So many organisations fail to recognise that this part of the process will in reality cost many times what you spent on the expensive creative thinking – some estimates put this at 10-20 times the front end design spend. Put that in numbers to get a measure of what it means – if you pay £1million to develop a new brand and visual identity, expect to pay up to £20million to make it work as the creative consultants told you it would – and that will be your problem, not theirs!

It doesn’t matter what industry you are in, your brand is critical to your business. Yet when it comes to major changes to your brand so many organisations allow the all-important implementation programme to become fragmented, with control over costs and quality moving away from the brand guardian to other “operational” areas, such as property, facilities, IT and many other distant parts of the business.

We recently conducted a small survey among a panel of senior marketing professionals, who between them had managed a significant number of brand change programmes. We asked them what typically happens when there is any kind of brand change. Their answers were consistently ‘inconsistent’ i.e. it seemed to happen in a different way every time. And that is not surprising, you don’t rebrand every year and the level of past experience within most organisations in reality is limited – so it tends to “get made up as we go along” as one of our interviewees said.

Again not surprisingly, it is pretty much common practice to bring in a brand consultant to help to shape the brand messages, the corporate visual identity, to develop the brand guidelines, and so on. Our panel all said this was the norm and, while expensive, it was worth it to get the visual brand and the brand communications in alignment.

But when we asked what happened next in making the new or reenergised brand work at a physical level, in all locations and all functions, there was almost universal agreement that, at that point, the “Brand Director” lost control and became reliant on others to make it happen across the organisation. Indeed, there is often no central idea what the total real cost of that implementation might be as it gets lost in departmental budgets, already planned replacement spend, and other ongoing initiatives. And that meant parochial politics, local priorities, in-house people with their own preferred suppliers, “not invented here” syndromes, and a myriad of other factors which influenced the speed, efficiency, and cost effectiveness of the brand implementation.

Major brand change programmes can be driven by a number of factors – merger (usually a total new brand – like the recent Towers Perrin/Watson Wyatt merger to form Towers Watson) or acquisition (often imposing one on another (e.g. Santander with Abbey and Bradford & Bingley), a brand re-launch or brand refresh (such as Ernst & Young did quite recently).

Let’s take a current example and just speculate for a minute to illustrate a point. Nobody knows as yet what Orange and T-Mobile will do with their new merged business entity, assuming it gets the necessary clearances in London and Brussels. However, here we have two very strong brands, with two equally strongly branded parents, neither of whom will want to see their brand devalued – somewhere along the line one or more brands will become redundant. Whatever happens, there will almost certainly need to be some changes to the brands of both of these High Street operators, even if it is only to reposition them as sister organisations. Or it could result in a complete rebrand. The probable scale of those changes will necessitate careful planning and implementation from their brand managers.

The marketing people will be looking at the front end on the consumer brands – but is anyone taking a view across all aspects of the combined businesses where brand change is going to be necessary? For example, on buildings and other property sites, in internal systems and processes, at corporate presentations and events, and a multitude of other areas where change could and should happen.

Has anyone added up the potential cost of those changes in real terms? How do you build brand engagement on both sides of the new entity? Does the Orange brand culture absorb and take over the old T-Mobile brand culture, or vice versa? And who is taking both the big picture view and looking in detail at the actions needed? For both, cost reduction must be critical to pay for the deal, so they will need to be very cost conscious when deciding how they intend to manage the new brand going forward.

It is in situations like this, making the brand strategy a reality, where the newly emerging role of the Brand Implementation Adviser offers a major step change for organisations going through brand changes. Let me declare my self–interest: Endpoint is one of consultancies leading the development of this new approach to brand implementation but today I am simply explaining the approach and the benefits – if you want the sales pitch just call me!

In a nutshell, what the Brand Implementation Adviser does is sit alongside the brand guardian/owner within the client organisation (usually an over worked Marketing Director who is also trying to make sure the brand is implanted across all his or her own highly visible marketing activities) and provides the day to day linkages to all other parts of the business.

It doesn’t replace local accountabilities, doesn’t interfere with existing preferred supplier arrangements or step on in-house toes. But what it does do is make sure that the brand is being implemented as it should be; that schedules are being met; that costs are being controlled and monitored; that quality is being maintained; that wheels are not being invented twice.

At one level it is about a massive check list of actions that makes sure nothing falls between the cracks. At another level, it is an independent eye offering experienced advice and guidance when and where it is needed. And at a third level it is a point of arbitration, even head banging when needed, to ensure the programme is not derailed by issues of “my patch” or different perceptions of priorities.

For example, with the Santander re-branding of Abbey, the master check-list had an action to replace branding on all ATM machines. Simple statement, complex to implement! There are huge variations in the type, location and size of all the ATMs and this complexity had to be managed along side the bigger branch rebranding programme, the changes to literature and other corporate materials, the IT changes necessary to implement the new brand and so on.

Just as the brand creative consultant sits at the front end of the process, the Brand Implementation Adviser should also sit at the front of the process because he will be the ongoing link that makes the creative consultants’ award winning ideas actually appear wherever it should, when it should and in a format that actually works! We can all think of examples where an expensive new corporate identity just hasn’t worked in real life as it was envisaged by the designers. Could these have been avoided with better planning and programme management? Almost certainly!

So today, when there has to be a real, measurable bottom line cost to any branding exercise, Brand Owners really should be putting someone in place to ensure best value and best practice is delivered. They should work with the creatives at the front end of the branding process. And then with the management team and all the people around the organisation, with an interest in or responsibility for making it happen, at the back end of the process. In this way, you will greatly improve the chances that the corporate goals that drove the rebranding in the first place are actually achieved, on time, on budget, at the right quality …. and definitely ON BRAND!

Gideon Wilkinson is one of the founding partners and is a director of Endpoint Limited. He can be contacted on +44 (0)20 7089 2670 or by email at gideon.wilkinson@endpoint.co.uk. You can learn more about Endpoint at www.endpoint.co.uk

21
Aug
09

A New World Order for Comms Directors?

By pendrywhite Leave a Comment
Categories: In-House Challenges
Tags: , , ,

Senior communications professionals are only slowly coming to terms with a rapidly changing media environment.

Greater demands on less resources, using some entirely new communications channels, mean that, for some, a radical rethink of traditional patterns of thought is required. This is something we have seen at close quarters, not just in relation to our own clients but in our own business.

Fortunately for us, our focus has always been more on strategic  and reputational communications, strong on content creation and the use of all available channels, than on classic media relations-based PR.

But this new world order, intensified by the surprisingly sudden emergence of social networking and new and basically indiscriminate mass-communication tools like Twitter, might mean that some in-house professionals and old school agencies will now be at sea.

If professionals cannot adjust to, or buy-in, the skills to exploit these phenomena, they will get a soaking and then be hung out to dry, both by their more experienced digital publics and by those competitors who are already setting the pace.

PRWeek’s 2009 Survey of Communications Directors showed some interesting trends in in-house communications. More than two thirds have seen their annual budgets cut in the last year, with a third of Communications Directors reporting budget cuts of over 20%.

The fascinating thing is where those cuts are being applied – two thirds have cut paper based content production; half have slashed conferences and events; and two in five have cut their PR agency budget. Two thirds have also cut their own in-house headcount

Those categories are identified as being ripe for even further cuts as “nice to haves” hit the cutting room floor in favour of “need to haves” in a recessionary environment where weakening revenue competes with the need to invest in new tools.

Also telling are the critical issues that they are addressing. Two thirds are desperately trying to ensure a consistent brand message in a world of overlapping social networks that do not believe in the hard sell of corporate messaging and have the means to debunk them at a stroke.

One clever viral video – as John McCain found when Paris Hilton decided to counter his criticism of her with an energy policy of her own – can unravel all the good work of the most skilled of traditional advisers.

William Shatner’s devastating reading of Palin’s ‘work’ on the prime time Conan O’Brien show stateside would have been irritating a decade ago – now it gets a cult following and can be accessed day or night anywhere in the world.

Not surprisingly then, over half of Communications Directors are trying to execute an effective digital strategy (and are probably struggling) and half again are claiming that their prime concern is the maintenance of public trust. The two aims are already in tension.

The most pressing issues facing them as functional heads are doing more with less people, demonstrating how PR supports the business, and a lack of time to contribute strategically. In other words, they are so busy doing that they have no time for thinking.

They are trapped. They are pushed from pillar to post by a demand that the world that they know well should deliver more coverage and clearer messaging at cheaper cost just as a new world dawns that offers better and cheaper delivery if only they knew how to work it.

Old communications hands may say “so what’s new about that”?  What is new is the almost manic speed with which things are changing.  The shift from pen and ink to printing is, in fact, the nearest analogy. Even News International is troubled!

The ever increasing pace at which PR and communications will have to move away from the traditional printed channels means a profound loss of direct control over the corporate message.  Yet our professional class has sold itself to its employers as a class in control of its public.

What is also undoubtedly true, as ever, is that “Content Is King”. Distribution is so free and easy and can reach anywhere in the world that the quality and integrity of the material that goes on or in the new channels becomes more critical than ever. Serious slip-ups are humiliations.

The art is to channel material through to individuals who will make a quick link to information that makes them linger and then connect with operational people able to solve a problem. Instead of just promoting brand value, communications become implicated in direct sales!

This means not just a strategy for using the digital media but a strategy and programme for creating continuous high quality content that is going to feed a beast with an insatiable appetite. Each content production now has to be as big as the distribution system that it enters.

If you would like to discuss the issues that this new world order in media is creating for your communications, contact Roger White on rwhite@pendrywhite.com       

 

September 2010
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©2009-2010 The Pendry White Partnership Limited. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Pendry White and Whiteboard with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
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