Thought Leadership on Thought Leadership

Who needs it? Not everyone. For standard retail, FMCG and commodities advertising, word, visual, aural and other sensory association is already doing this. So don't mix thought leadership with brand development. Perhaps technology, hi-tech, highly competitive, high-value products? Services need a much more consistent and long-term approach. Creating a new word for the dictionary can help. Examples to think about include kleenex, band-aid, frisbee, post-its, xerox, casio, windows, google, vespa, godrej and bajaj (in India).

Word or words. This has to be aligned genuinely, honestly and transparently with the Vision, mission, company policies, company culture, people culture, philosophy and the selected product or service to which this thought leadership would like to be attributed to.

Content is king. The word or words need to be backed by solid content. Headlines. Visuals (A picture is worth a thousand words). These days - a video on youtube. A story, dramatized version or sound-bite for radio or FM. Engagement and interaction with the thoughts words with puzzles, games, apps or other technologies.

Some historical attempted examples could be "Think" and "On-demand" by IBM, "The internet of eveything" by Cisco. in India and retail examples could be "Point" by Computer Point and "Kart" by Flipkart generated a plethora of me-too firms. This-Point, That-point and Other-point to MyKart, YourKart and OurKart.

Match between demand and supply. The demand side is customers who will consume not only or just the thought and act on it but deeply interactive, engaged and integrated with the supply side in the words, values and emotionally intrinsically gained by the supply of a product or service to the demand.

Campaign. Essentially this is an Agency discipline. It includes research, creative and media for advertising, promotion, merchandising and public relations in nature.