Man Bites Dog awarded Specialist Consultancy of the Year
Man Bites Dog has been named Specialist Consultancy of the year in the B2B Marketing Awards 2022.
AI disruption presents unprecedented growth opportunities for professional services firms as clients across various industries grapple with its promise. But how can professional services marketing and business development deliver growth in the AI economy?
This is not another blog about your martech stack and how you can deploy AI in your marketing processes, important though that is. Instead, it focuses on how you can use thought leadership to promote your firm’s AI-related services and capabilities, driving business growth and winning the battle of intelligent brands.
Right now, AI feels like an unstoppable force transforming industries, changing the way we live and work, and reshaping societies before our very eyes. The AI market opportunity is huge, with enormous potential up for grabs. But what really matters is what AI means for your clients.
According to Man Bites Dog’s transatlantic Thought Makers research into how C-suite leaders in billion-dollar companies engage with thought leadership and how it influences their buying decisions, business leaders see AI as a game-changer for their organisations.
In partnership with Ambition, Claire Mason, our CEO & Founder, and I presented this and a range of other thought-provoking insights at a roundtable event for senior professional services marketing and business development.
Here's a round-up of the key insights and discussions on how Professional Services firms can capitalise on AI-driven opportunities:
Seventy-four per cent of C-suite leaders in multi-billion-dollar companies across all sectors see AI and disruptive technologies as a significant growth opportunity for their businesses. This offers a significant opportunity for professional services to utilise thought leadership in promoting their organisation’s AI-related services and capabilities
There is a lot of talk and “success theatre” with little transformational action. This is where professional services firms come in, helping clients build the use cases that will deliver real business value and supporting them in bridging the “dream-delivery gap”.
This means that many firms are missing out on significant growth opportunities. Yet two-thirds (66%) of C-suite business leaders believe it is acceptable for firms to market AI-related products and services while they are still working on their own AI strategy – it’s a journey, not a destination.
Thought leadership content helps clients navigate the unknown. Our Thought Makers research revealed that 74% of business leaders always consider a strategic supplier’s thought leadership when making buying decisions. Your clients are looking to you for guidance, and thought leadership should be used as a platform to provide it.
As AI-generated content increases, 69% of C-suite leaders believe it is more important than ever to put your trusted advisors front and centre to demonstrate an organisation’s human expertise and credibility. This is especially pertinent in professional service organisations, where human expertise is a key factor that differentiates you from your competitors.
For more insights, download our Thought Makers report, or get in touch with Alison Sharpe, Divisional Director and Head of Professional Services at [email protected] for an initial conversation or get in touch here.
On the 20th - 21st of November 2024, the Man Bites Dog team will attend London Build, the UK's largest construction festival, bringing together over 35,000 professionals from across the industry. This highly anticipated event attracts top contractors, architects, developers, house builders, civil engineers, and government representatives to network and explore the latest trends shaping the future of construction.
This year’s event is set to be the biggest yet with a lineup of 700 speakers across 12 CPD-accredited stages, 450 exhibitors and 25 industry-led networking events, ensuring unmatched business and networking opportunities.
On day 1 at 2pm, our Divisional Director, Duncan Sparke will be hosting a workshop in the Skills & Marketing Hub with Peter Hogg, UK Cities Director at Arcadis. The workshop Using Thought Leadership to Drive Sales - A Case Study: The Sustainable Cities Index will explore how thought leadership can drive sales in the complex, built environment sector.
Drawing on insights and learnings from the decade-long Sustainable Cities Index, Duncan and Peter will share how the thought leadership campaign propelled the topic of urban sustainability into the mainstream news and business agenda. The campaign not only became a landmark sustainability measure for countries worldwide but is now attributed to millions of dollars of revenue per year.
Our recent Thought Makers research uncovered how thought leadership platforms can be primary sales tools for built environment and engineering firms. Strengthening your position as a thought leader in the market is key to opening new business opportunities, generating media and client engagement and sparking debate on some of the industry's most pressing issues. However, effective thought leadership must, above all, function as a strategic growth lever for your organisation.
If you’d like to join us at London Build, you can register for free tickets here. Your ticket will give you access to 35,000+ attendees, 700+ speakers across 12 CPD stages, 450+ exhibitors, feature areas, networking parties, and endless entertainment throughout the Festival.
If you’re attending and would like to discuss how thought leadership can supercharge brand and sales in the built environment and engineering sectors, please get in touch.
Nearly two decades ago, I established Man Bites Dog to pioneer a new category of strategic marketing as the world’s first specialist thought leadership consultancy. To mark this milestone, we’ve produced some big thinking of our own to examine the state of thought leadership today and how you can use it to supercharge your brand and sales.
Our Thought Makers study is based on comprehensive transatlantic research to understand how C-suite executives in multi-billion-dollar companies across the UK and the US engage with thought leadership and how it influences their buying decisions.
Man Bites Dog’s research reveals the critical role of thought leadership as a bridge from brand to sales and highlights the growing importance of B2B brand content in business decision-making.
94% of C-suite leaders consume thought leadership content created by business brands every week – with 55% engaging daily. Business leaders trust content from business brands more than content from the media, government or public institutions, conferring huge pressure on business brands to produce responsible content, and providing an unprecedented opportunity for businesses to lead change agendas.
CMOs and business leaders often wonder if they have the authority to be a thought leader, and if there is demand from clients and customers to hear their thinking. The answer is an emphatic “Yes”! More than three-quarters (77%) of C-suite leaders expect their strategic suppliers to challenge them on emerging trends and issues. They are increasingly reliant on their strategic suppliers for innovation, insights into where the market is going and to build business-cases for transformation and investment. There is huge customer demand for business insight - so make sure the ideas they are consuming are yours!
Thought-leading B2B content is not just attracting attention and building trust – it’s driving sales. 74% of C-suite leaders always consider a strategic supplier’s thought leadership when making a buying decision. These hard-to-reach C-suite buyers see thought leadership as the most effective way to build brand and reputation, and the best way to support profitable conversations with clients and prospects.
In addition, business leaders are also more likely to buy from a supplier if they see them as a thought leader. It also makes relationships stickier. Two-thirds of business leaders are more likely to continue a relationship with a supplier if they consider them to be a thought leader.
When it comes to their own growth strategy, business leaders see thought leadership as the most effective way to build brand and reputation and the best way to support profitable conversations with clients and prospects.
And they see the thought leadership content they share is part of the value they deliver to their clients and wider society: 77% of business leaders believe their company has a responsibility to create content that will help their customers and wider society advance change.
If you’d like to learn more about our findings and how thought leadership can help to supercharge your brand and sales, download the full report here.
Supercharging C-Suite Sales
with B2B Thought Leadership
For a discipline built on carefully crafted sentences and the all-important ‘message’, in reality thought leadership is a numbers game. And not just any numbers.
The opinions of experts are always valuable, but when backed up by powerful evidence, they become invaluable. What constitutes powerful evidence isn’t as straightforward as we often imagine – and a one-size-fits-all approach no longer works.
In the recent past, one size did seem to fit most of the time, and that one size was called ‘opinion research.’ It was the gold standard of evidence-backed thought leadership. In a world where behavioural economics loomed large that made a lot of sense.
Peoples’ opinions do still matter, in my opinion, but only regarding topics that depend on their opinion (i.e. when the outcome is heavily dependent on a particular group’s views and the responses they elicit). It is here that many recent campaigns have taken a stumble.
The headlines and boardroom debates in 2024 aren’t nearly as centred around behavioural economics as they once were. Perhaps more importantly still, the future isn’t the blank slate we used to assume, waiting to be shaped, limited only by the scope of human imagination.
Instead, the new kid on the block is environmental economics, and she’s taking no prisoners, without much care given to what anyone else thinks.
In the modern world of thought leadership data, the research methods we use and the numbers that we crunch must be applied carefully and directly to the subject at hand.
For example, if we want to understand how organisations and their employees envisage their roles being shaped by the future of technology, opinion research is the perfect tool. However, if we want to understand the reality of how cities around the world are being reshaped to meet the needs of both climate change and their citizens, opinion data will fall woefully short.
What’s the alternative? Historically the most robust and powerful forms of data have been neglected, because they are harder to work with. But economic data is starting to have its moment in the sun.
Why? Because it tells us what is happening on the ground, not what fallible humans imagine to be the case. If you’re planning your talent needs for the next five years, would you rather know what skills exist in the market and how they are changing over time, relative to demand, or would you rather know what some people think is happening?
Once again, that is not to say that opinion research is dead. It isn’t, and it has a huge amount to offer wherever behaviours are important, such as diagnosing missed opportunities or where key perception gaps exist between different groups.
However, it is no longer the only weapon in the arsenal. Organisations that neglect the tangible, robust power of real-world data will struggle to take their thought leadership from ‘interesting’ to genuinely game changing.
If you'd like to learn more about our approach to data and thought leadership, please get in touch here.
As AI transforms industries and reshapes the way we live and work, organisations need to find ways to seize the growth opportunities that AI brings, and position themselves as leaders. Intelligent brands – organisations that provide high-value, critical services and technology – must differentiate themselves through their unique thinking, expertise, and insights that help power their clients' success.
In this rapidly evolving AI landscape, thought leadership has become a crucial strategy for establishing authority and helping clients navigate what's next. However, in a world saturated with content, truly effective thought leadership must centre around a compelling "big idea" that resonates emotionally while being anchored in robust data that appeals to the intellect.
At Man Bites Dog, we've been supporting our clients to craft their big AI-dea – a powerful concept backed up with substantial data. Our impactful thought leadership campaigns are designed to navigate the complexities and opportunities of technological disruption.
Here’s a round-up of some of our recent campaigns:
The New Riskonomy for Hogan Lovells
In partnership with global law firm, Hogan Lovells, we developed a thought leadership platform focused to help organisations build resilience and thrive in an evolving world of tech risk. The New Riskonomy investigates some of the most pressing factors when it comes to technology, with a focus on the recent surge in generative AI.
We conducted global opinion research amongst 1,000 General Counsel and 500 C-suite executives to explore the complex relationship between technology-related risks and corporate performance.
The Riskonomy Radar, a counterpart tool, also enables business leaders to understand where they could be overlooking tech threats to their business and to be strategically inspired by successful sectors. Our proprietary benchmarking methodology uses scored data points to categorise organisational technology risk.
The research unveiled some concerning stats: 91% of businesses are exposed to moderate or high levels of technology-related risk. C-suite and GCs identify the top technology-associated risks to their business over the next three years as data management, cyber security, a digital skills gap and misuse of generative AI within their organisation. But three in five (60%) admit their business is not taking a positive, proactive approach to technology-associated risks and doesn’t have the appropriate strategies and policies in place.
The campaign was supported with an interactive microsite. The findings are distilled into four chapters exploring organisational vulnerabilities. This was supported with sector-focused versions of the report and roundtable events.
Explore the campaign here.
The Next Organization for Mayer Brown
To help our client, Mayer Brown, a leading international law firm, reach its goals of helping its clients turn critical, complex, and challenging issues into opportunities for growth, we partnered with them to create ‘The Next Organization.’
Based on global research, ‘The Next Organization’ explores the perspectives of leaders at financial services firms on business transformation – along with their assessment of their organisation’s readiness to thrive in “the next economy.”
Unsurprisingly, AI emerged as a key theme as it reshapes the business landscape. Business leaders are becoming increasingly anxious that the speed of technological change is leaving their organisations exposed and unable to keep pace.
Key findings:
Seven in 10 business leaders (72% of financial institution leaders and 73% of investment firm leaders) say that AI developments are moving so fast that their organisation is not able to transform quickly enough and risks becoming redundant.
71% of leaders of financial institutions and 83% of leaders in investment firms believe that in the next three years, pervasive AI will have a big impact on the market environment.
Only 26% of leaders of financial institutions and 34% investment firm leaders believe they have a clear and future-ready strategy in place for AI, and the majority of both financial institutions and investment firms (65% and 67% respectively) have AI transformation strategies that only look 12 months ahead.
Read more findings in the report here.
Can AI-powered productivity solve the talent crisis for Mercer
Can AI-powered productivity solve the talent crisis? We worked with professional services company, Mercer, to find out.
We developed an economic model that revealed that AI’s potential to boost productivity could offset the headwinds from changing demographics and a shrinking skilled labour force. However, AI will not disrupt countries and sectors equally, with the finance sector predicted to see productivity gains of 14% compared to 3.1% in the hospitality sector.
According to the modelling, AI-driven productivity gains could free up 36 workdays a year for the average worker. The companies that embrace the opportunities created by AI will stand firmly on the shoulders of robots, unlocking unprecedented levels of innovation and efficiency.
You can read the full study here.
If you’d like to learn how to craft your next big AI-dea, contact one of our thought leadership experts here.
In the energy sector, transformation is a necessity. As organisations try to navigate the urgent call for sustainability and grapple with the challenges of climate action, the energy sector finds itself at the nexus of some of the biggest trends shaping the global economy.
From the phase-out of fossil fuels to the rise of renewables, the energy landscape is continually evolving. Renewable energy technologies such as wind and solar power are expanding rapidly. By 2028, renewables are expected to account for over 42% of global electricity generation, with wind and solar doubling their share to 25%.
Amidst this change, one thing remains clear: the need for strategic direction. Strategic thought leadership is not just about staying ahead of the curve — it’s about shaping it. With the energy sector responsible for nearly 73% of global greenhouse gas emissions, the pressure to reduce carbon emissions and embrace the energy transition is immense. Strategic thought leadership can play a key role in guiding the industry forward by driving innovation and steering it toward a sustainable future.
So, with this in mind, let's look at three key ways strategic thought leadership can create a transformative impact.
Powerful thought leadership – content from a business brand, based on a strategic idea and backed up by robust data – can help to set the agenda in a fast-changing sector. It can be a medium for exploring sustainable innovation, quantifying the impact of transition, and demonstrating the risks of inaction. From renewable energy sources to energy-efficient practices, strategic thought leadership content can explore and highlight sustainable solutions that not only meet the needs of today but safeguard the planet for tomorrow, potentially helping to accelerate their development and adoption.
The journey towards sustainability is not one that can be undertaken in isolation. Collaboration is key, and strategic thought leadership can help to forge impactful partnerships. Thought leadership campaigns – including content, events and coalitions – can bring together industry stakeholders, policymakers, and environmental advocates, fostering an environment of shared purpose and collective action. Organisations can amplify their impact and accelerate progress towards common goals.
Strategic thought leadership embraces a call to action, championing disruption and innovation as drivers of progress. It’s about envisioning a future powered by clean, renewable energy and working tirelessly to make that vision a reality.
A recent example of thought leadership shaping the agenda is GHD’s SHOCKED: De-risking the energy transition which found that 97% of energy sector leaders fear the current crisis is the worst ever and that it has wiped $203 billion from investment levels. The research was launched at Reuters Global Energy Transition 2023 in New York, brought to COP28 in Dubai and taken on a global client roadshow by the GHD team.
Strategic thought leadership has the power to revolutionise industries by fostering collaboration and driving transformative change. By uniting diverse stakeholders under a common agenda, industry leaders can face challenges that transcend individual organisations.
At Man Bites Dog, we understand the unique challenges facing the energy industry and we’re committed to being part of the solution. Through our strategic thought leadership services, we empower organisations to navigate the complexities of the transition towards sustainability, driving innovation, fostering collaboration, and shaping a future powered by clean, renewable energy.
As the energy industry undegoes a change transition, the need for strategic thought leadership has never been greater.
In our latest webinar, 'Uncharted Waters', Man Bites Dog’s, Sean Farrance-White, was joined by water industry experts Ania Grobicki, Lead Water Advisor at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Rod Naylor, Global Water Lead and Kathryn Newland, Marketing Communications Lead at GHD.
Using the award-winning Aquanomics thought leadership campaign as an example, the panel highlights how impactful sustainability marketing can elevate an organisation’s reputation and help build relationships, generate revenue and create real-world impact.
The panel explored how the Aquanomics campaign was developed using Man Bites Dog’s 4D strategic ideation model. Our team identified an opportunity to quantify the economic impact of global water risk, alongside in-depth research and expert interviews to form the basis for the content. The research revealed that droughts, floods and storms could wipe $5.6 trillion from global GDP between 2022 and 2050. Aquanomics boosted GHD’s brand visibility and empowered the firm to share its message at the UN’s Conference of Parties (COP) for the first time.
Watch the Webinar now to learn:
You’ll come away with:
To find out about how we can help your brand create stand-out, award-winning thought leadership, and the benefits of using diverse content forms to enhance the reach and impact of your campaigns, please get in touch here.
This technology marketing masterclass – hosted by Man Bites Dog’s Head of Technology Division Fiona Buckley and featuring Patrick Cassleman, Senior Director, Sustainability Center of Excellence at Intel and Man Bites Dog CEO Claire Mason – explores marketing at the convergence of sustainability and digitalisation.
For business leaders, technology plays a paradoxical role in the sustainability agenda. This is because fundamental business functions such as global computing, data centres and data transmission networks are inarguably significant contributors to carbon emissions, water use and e-waste. There is a scale that needs to be balanced: demand for computing performance vs reducing environmental impact.
In this webinar, the panel discussed The Sustainable CTO, a global thought leadership platform developed by Man Bites Dog and Intel, which shines the spotlight on tech leaders as pivotal sustainability influencers in the corporate C-suite. Patrick, Claire and Fiona explain how Intel has used this platform to engage with C-suite buyers and supercharge sales.
The panel also dived into The Sustainable CTO, a thought leadership initiative created for Intel in partnership with Man Bites Dog. The study gathered insights from 2,020 global business leaders from 22 markets to share their triangulated perspectives as CTOs, CEOs and chief sustainability officers (CSOs) in the world’s largest companies. The Sustainable CTO initiative introduced a new model of tech leader with the potential to become the greatest driver of sustainability in the corporate C-suite. Man Bites Dog positioned Intel as a thought leader in sustainability by moving the agenda beyond ‘tech zero’ to ‘tech positive’.
Tech Zero: Reducing the carbon footprint of an organisation’s IT function.
Tech Positive: Using technology as a lever for the whole organisation to reach its net-zero goals and to have a positive overall impact, driving business growth and accelerating innovation.
The webinar also broke down five practical steps to successful thought leadership.
Fiona, Patrick and Claire discussed the power of implementing all five of these elements to see both internal and external results across your organisation. Specifically, the panel discussed the opportunity that this content can bring to sales teams. By giving them original data on a topic of key interest to their client's business success, such as sustainability, they can have informed and educated conversations with those clients, forming stronger relationships.
To learn more about the power of thought leadership and what it could mean for your organisation, reach out to us at [email protected]. For the latest updates on Man Bites Dog events and content, register for future event invitations here, or follow us on LinkedIn.
In our webinar, ‘Return on Inclusion’, Man Bites Dog’s Divisional Director, Duncan Sparke, and Associate Director, Lauren Street were joined by financial services industry experts Farmida Bi CBE, from Norton Rose Fulbright, and Dominic Traynor, from BNY Mellon. The session covered how the financial services industry has the ability to not only advocate for major societal change, but to power it. For that reason, no-one else can quite match the potential of financial services marketers to catalyse progress.
To catch up on the webinar, watch the recording below.
The panel discussed the importance of creating impactful social purpose campaigns that cut through the noise. The problem with social impact campaigns, however, is that having a widespread real-world impact doesn’t happen overnight. Our webinar looked at the success factors in building a truly impactful social purpose marketing campaign, and unpacked one particular campaign that echoed around the world: BNY Mellon Investment Management’s The Pathway to Inclusive Investment – flipping the narrative from one of individual risk to one of global opportunity.
The webinar centered around the financial services sector and the pivotal role it can play in fostering positive social change. It touched on the importance of addressing the gender investment gap, and the intersectional complexities that play a role – from culture, and ethnicity, to socio-economic opportunity. The combination of these challenges and financial services’ ability to drive social evolution is a vital interplay.
The topics discussed during the webinar helped to illustrate the importance of the industry engaging with governments, and educational institutions, in an effort to tackle the societal pressures that sit at the cause of the investment gap dilemma.
An example of a purpose-led thought leadership campaign that successfully followed these principles is BNY Mellon Investment Management’s The Pathway to Inclusive Investment developed in partnership with Man Bites Dog. This social impact campaign is the largest study into global female financial inclusion. It found that the investment industry excludes 72% of women, and costs the global economy more than $3.22 trillion. It found that solving the inclusion crisis would open up an additional 1.86 trillion to fund climate and social investment aims.
During the Q&A session, several critical topics were addressed such as:
Organisations need to be committed to the long-term result with social impact campaigns. Having leadership buy-in and setting the parameters of success as real-world change beyond the immediate top-line advantage is crucial. Cutting through the noise, and delivering a campaign that is truly impactful, with data-driven insights is key in turning the dial on change.
To kickstart your brand's sustainable go-to-market strategy, reach out to us at [email protected] and explore our sustainability marketing solutions. For the latest updates on Man Bites Dog events and content, register for future event invitations here, or follow us on LinkedIn.
At Man Bites Dog we spend a lot of time thinking about megatrends. Over the last year we have calculated the financial returns on climate adaptation in emerging markets, delved into the impact of the global energy crisis and explored the role of technology leaders within organisations in pushing through sustainability initiatives. Often our thinking on these megatrends involves trying to find a new counterintuitive angle, or exploring how trends currently impacting businesses might interact with each other.
But in 2024, one megatrend – and two letters – is dominating our thinking more than any other: AI. Depending on your perspective it’s either coming for your job or it will save humanity. The reality is probably somewhere in between, but what is certain is that it will change (almost) everything. Recent trials of Microsoft’s GPT-powered Copilot found 70% of knowledge workers said they were more productive when using the AI tool. Repetitive tasks in the accounting and legal professions are set to be automated out of existence, whilst the application of AI to some of the complex industrial processes or the creation of “digital twins” will create huge real-world efficiencies. And anyone who has attended a marketing event or scrolled through a social media timeline recently (i.e. everyone) is met with fevered speculation about how generative AI will disrupt the marketing industry.
However, it is perhaps using artificial intelligence to tackle the biggest and most complex challenge of them all – the climate crisis – where it will have the greatest impact. To achieve a global net zero, the next 25 or so years will require a transformation of business the likes of which the world has never seen. The energy sector needs to decarbonise first and fast (see Supercharging Net Zero, our research project with Arcadis) whilst hard-to-abate sectors such as steel manufacturing will need to revolutionise their processes to produce products without fossil fuels. The full might of international capital markets will need to be thrown at millions of decarbonisation projects across the globe and, in a world of rising sea levels and increased extreme weather events, we will need new and innovative technologies to help communities adapt.
The good news is – it’s already happening. AI is already being used to intelligently manage power grids to ensure supply better meets demand and it is running as efficiently as possible. The technology is being integrated into accounting software to help businesses track their scope 3 carbon emissions. And the potential for ‘industrial AI’ to optimise processes – and therefore reduce emissions – in the advanced manufacturing, built environment and infrastructure sectors is huge. However, even to the giddiest techno-optimist, it's clear that the huge amount of data centre capacity needed to underpin ubiquitous AI will lead to an equally huge carbon footprint. According to some estimates, the tech sector as a whole could account for a whopping 14% of global emissions by 2040.
But what does this mean for B2B marketing teams and their thought leadership? As with all disruptions for forward-thinking B2B organisations, the AI revolution creates opportunities for growth as their clients seek guidance on what happens next. By undertaking research-backed thought leadership around the impact of AI on the sustainable transition within their sector, marketing teams can cater to that demand – helping their customers navigate the disruption and seize the opportunity of AI.
Does this sound relevant to the conversations you're having with your clients? Get in touch with the Man Bites Dog team to find out how we could help.
In a crowded market, the pressure is on professional services marketers to cut through the noise. Over the last decade, marketing has become too focused on quantity instead of quality, with 1.5 quintillion bytes of content produced every day, and 2.5 billion blog posts published each year. As generative AI becomes more mainstream, this content load is set to exponentially increase.
Storytelling – the world’s oldest communication technology – is a powerful way for professional services marketers to connect with clients. The question is, what stories are we telling today, and are they resonating? And how can we ensure our stories build our firm’s reputation, generate revenue, and create real-world change?
The thought leadership equation: a big idea plus substantial data
Well-told stories are powerful – with some even lasting a lifetime. To capture our hearts, they need to be interesting; they need a big idea. But as well as engaging our emotions we also need to appeal to the intellect – the rational part of the brain responsible for logic, problem-solving, organisation, and decision making. And to do this we need to communicate substantive information or data as part of the story.
We’re surrounded by a blizzard of information all day, every day – and we don’t remember raw facts. There’s just too much of it. It’s only when you put data behind a big idea, that we engage with the facts, remember them, and act on them. To create effective thought leadership we need data-driven stories that have a big idea at their core to stir our emotions supported by substantive data to engage our intellect.
This is the Man Bites Dog thought leadership equation:
There are five steps to harnessing data-driven thought leadership, requiring us to be strategic business partners to our clients and stakeholders:
To be a thought leader you must lead, not follow. Forward-looking, predictive insight is much more valuable than retrospective review. But how do you develop a credible vision of what’s next? There is a whole toolkit of options to help you see trends beyond they break. This includes using scenario planning to imagine potential futures, economic modelling to understand and anticipate trends, and sophisticated opinion research – often amongst niche audiences – to get to the heart of an issue.
Find a strong core idea that will set you apart and make a mark. This is not about following the crowd; it’s about telling people something new and different – a radical ‘man bites dog’ concept that involves against-the-grain thinking.
A signature big idea is the “north star” to unify all your content, that is scalable and sustained for years to come to give you cumulative impact. Professional services marketing tends to cluster around the same themes, so it is critical to instead choose an emerging, pre-topical issue your firm can own. This is especially true for crowded spaces such as sustainability or M&A, where you need to work even harder to make sure your big idea is new and different enough to stand out.
And while you can encompass a huge amount of detail within your campaign, you must be able to distil it into a single strong core idea that can be said in a sentence. A theme isn’t specific and new enough to be an idea – but a theme might help you scope out a starting point.
Once you have a clear idea, it needs to be substantiated with evidence by generating new, proprietary data. A common error is to conduct ‘state of the nation’ surveys to find out what people think on a given broad topic area, hoping to find something interesting and retrofit a narrative. This is a high-risk approach, which is likely to lead to unremarkable results. Instead, start with the end in mind, using your strong core idea to guide focused research. It’s the difference between a vague fishing expedition and following a treasure map to achieve your goal.
Effective thought leadership is based on a strategic idea that is anchored in your strategy to create a clear call-to-action for your services. To ensure that the idea translates into sales, it must be grounded in your business and connected with what your firm is selling. Linking the campaign to a “gateway service” such as an assessment tool or a benchmarking exercise enables business development teams to convert opportunities into revenue. Campaign-linked gateway services are also a great way of tracking marketing-influenced sales because everyone who buys the gateway service has come through your programme.
The fifth and final step is about winning attention and engagement. It involves unleashing your experts and engaging others in your story to build your reputation, relationships, revenue, and real-world impact. It means tailoring your campaign content to suit a multi-channel, multi-device world.
You will need to adopt an omnichannel approach aligned with the big-picture vision set out in your global campaign strategy to land your content and messages and ensure they have maximum impact.
Defining what’s next
While drumbeat content, reactive marketing strategies, and pulse campaigns all have their place, to truly make an impact and develop a differentiated voice for your firm, you need a big idea that can galvanise your whole organisation and provide a “north star” for all your content and marketing efforts. Much of today’s marketing and sales content lacks a story to engage our hearts and lacks data to intrigue our minds.
Impactful, strategic thought leadership puts the focus squarely back on quality over quantity. Strong thought leadership involves creating and amplifying big ideas; ideas that can define what’s next. It can increase your impact and grow your business, but it can also start movements, shape new markets, enrol followers, and create real-world change.
The demand for genuine and engaging thought leadership is higher than ever before. Recent Man Bites Dog research found that 76% of business leaders more likely to do business with professional services firms that they see as thought-leading experts in their field.1
As professional services marketers face greater competition than ever, it is critical to use the thought leadership equation to differentiate your firm from its competitors and cut through the ever-increasing noise. If you'd like to learn more about thought leadership for professional services, contact us at: [email protected].
Today, we find ourselves at a remarkable inflection point. Events over the past few years are transforming how we think about the future and the new economy. The opportunity for lawyers is to put themselves in their clients’ shoes and help them identify and react to the new set of challenges that lie ahead.
But what is next? Can you clearly see the future you will help your clients to navigate? Does your firm have compelling future thinking to share? Importantly, have you defined a new vision for your firm? Legal marketers need to be the navigators of what’s next.
The challenges facing leaders and the organisations they lead include decarbonisation, hybrid working and digital transformation, to name a few.
Not only are your clients having to handle these issues internally, but they are also under increasing pressure to share their thinking to bring about clarity and direction.
Today every CEO is expected to be a thought leader which means that your clients are now competing with you for share of voice on these crowded topics.
Future vision and orientation are becoming even more important than past performance in securing investment, as business leaders recognise that they need to be seen as innovators in order to build reputation, deepen relationships and ultimately generate revenue. To be seen as trustworthy experts you must be more knowledgeable than your clients and be generous with that knowledge. That’s the value you can bring.
With clients judging your firm’s capability and innovation on the quality of your thought leadership, it is crucial to crystalise your strategic agenda. Carving out time now for the market-making activity that will drive your firm’s business success in three to five years’ time is more important than ever.
So how can we go about advancing that strategic agenda for the years ahead?
The first step is to define the area of focus for your future thinking. Man Bites Dog’s 4D strategic ideation model presents a process to guide this thinking:
By combining these dimensions, you can shortlist a few promising opportunity areas or themes for the firm. Next, select a theme that is broad enough to act as a unifying umbrella – a golden thread that connects all (or most) of your services - in an emerging space that will help you deliver future growth. This is where you can win in the future. This is your strategic agenda.
Once you’ve developed a vision of the next economy and defined what your role in it might look like - your strategic agenda - you then need to take this vision to the next level.
The key to carving out a thought leadership position is having a strong core idea, especially as there can be a tendency for thought leadership to cluster around the same issues. To avoid thought followership, you need to have something new and different to say – a radical concept that is against the grain – and be able to distil this into a single core story.
There is power in telling stories with numbers. Backing up your idea with evidence by generating new proprietary data is essential. When it comes to research, it is important to build a new toolkit to be able to see further forward and evidence your insights with a reasonable degree of credibility and accuracy.
In a world where organisations are increasingly judged on the quality of thinking they share, forward looking, predictive insight is much more valuable than retrospective. To be a thought leader you need to shine a light on what’s next.
The future-ready legal marketer has a critical role to play in developing and communicating your firm’s future thinking, both in terms of articulating your firm’s vision in your thought leadership campaigns and how it informs new marketing-led products and services to help your firm lead in the new economy.
Man Bites Dog has been named Specialist Consultancy of the year in the B2B Marketing Awards 2022.
Our award-winning Zeronomics campaign for Standard Chartered is a cornerstone example of the storytelling, positioning and strategic work we do at Man Bites Dog.
Man Bites Dog recently partnered with Women in Journalism to conduct a major new study on gender inequality in UK journalism and media.
For some years now, we have been campaigning to close The Gender Say Gap, a term we coined to highlight the invisibility of women and diverse leaders as expert authorities in business and public life.
Head Office
Moore House
13 Black Lion Street
Brighton
United Kingdom
BN1 1ND
London Office
24/25 The Shard
32 London Bridge Street
London
United Kingdom
SE1 9SG
+44 (0) 1273 716 820
[email protected]
Head Office
Moore House
13 Black Lion Street
Brighton
United Kingdom
BN1 1ND
London Office
24/25 The Shard
32 London Bridge Street
London
United Kingdom
SE1 9SG
