The press , trade and national, picked up on this week’s new Thought Leadership Index from TLG (the Thought Leadership Group). Apple and Google appeared as number 1 and 2. What the trade press didn’t point out is that The Co-operative Bank ranked 6, just behind joint third place companies Microsoft, Amazon and GSK (the pharma folks) and ahead of Facebook and Twitter.
So a couple of background details.
TLG is a London-based PR agency that specialises in projecting brands as thought leaders. It is “thought leadership as marketing”.
Second the Index is created from UK “key opinion formers”. The idea is if you are a brand that markets via thought leadership then you need to be influencing the people that matter (if you believe in that concept).
Leave aside your skepticism for a moment. The inclusion of the Co-op among these tech giants is important. The Co-op is not known for a raft of innovations but for a tradition of shared ownership. It is the bank that likes to trace its history back to the 1844 Cooperative pioneers. Who would have thought it could be snapping at Microsoft’s heels in 2009 and leaving Facebook and Twitter in its shadow?
A second observation. TLG have tried to make thought leadership a concrete element of marketing. I don’t think they have succeeded with this Index but the fact that they are trying is a good indication that thought leadership is a vital part of marketing impact. This may be historically new (comments please).
I think it has important implications for Symbian and its members. It says the broader cultural values that we stand for have an important place even in the perspectives of people who automatically think Apple, Google, Microsoft when asked about thought leadership.
Did TLG say what evidence they saw for the Co-op demonstrating thought leadership? It’s presumably not just innovation, which is where Apple and Google score highly.
The evidence is all drawn from a survey of Key opinion Leaders in the UK. They don’t give a huge amount of detail on the method for soliciting those viewpoints. If you follow the TLG link above you can take a look at the summary
Outside of city, this sort of puff from “key opinion formers” are widely discredited.
There are usually no metrics, just perception by a hand full of businessmen. It has been shown consistently that for example “good employer” or “thought leadership” will rated higher for a company simply if they have a more positive profile/shareprice in the media.
As an example. If you asked a key opinion former if Apple had nice offices to work at, they would probably assume yes because of their perception of the luxury of Apple’s products.
C’mon. The phrase thought leadership should be enough to make you run a mile, let alone post it to this blog.
err. couple of comments back Stringer – did you check if it is indeed such a small, handful of businessmen study
but ona serious note.
Isn’t what you are saying contradicted by the inclusion of the Cooperative Bank?
The Co-op has been derided for decades by the business press and the idea of cooperation was till getting a tough time from there up to the recession – yet the Co-op pioneered common ownership and it is now getting recognition again nearly 160 years after it started. That seems to me to be a really good reason to include it here on this blog. Symbian is in the common ownership and commons business and has to find a way to shine in and among all the prejudices ad reactions you are talking about.