Today’s Jury question was that rarity – one returning strong votes in both the ‘Yes’ and ‘No’ camps and a few mixed opinions among our 12 jurors.

 

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We asked: ‘Should thought leadership sit in marketing?’ – looking for views on who’s responsible as well as how best to make thought leadership work for both the business and its customers and prospects.

EY Global Content Strategist and Editorial Lead Liz Bolshaw spoke of the need for thought leadership to be closely aligned with marketing, for things such as prioritising, messaging and amplification, while explaining her ‘No’ vote: “BUT the danger when thought leadership teams sit within marketing departments is that the research and insights are in too direct service to sales priorities. All research shows that clients really don’t like thought leadership that sells to them.”

Euan Davis, VP Growth Markets at Virtusa, came back with a strong ‘No’, but also a pragmatic take. “Ideation must be grounded in strategy, but effective execution requires marketing muscle. It’s a symbiotic relationship between strategy and marketing,” he said.

Dolby copy lead Judson Hamilton added: “If [thought leadership] were solely housed in marketing, then the desire to simply sell an idea through would be too tempting. The result would come off as disingenuous (or worse just flat out unoriginal or uninspiring) and the brand’s credibility would be diminished.”

Follow the money. That’s another way to look at this subject, and an angle from Natixis Head of Thought Leadership Jonathan Barker. While he was a ‘No’ to thought leadership sitting in marketing, he said: “It needs budget, buy-in and sponsorship from more than one function, and that ideally should be marketing, communications, PR and the senior leadership.”

 

 

Let marketing lead

 

The ‘Yes’ camp contained several Jury first-timers, some also keen on calling for balance.

Jack Boitani, VP Content at Dentsu, said: “The orchestration and prioritisation of thought leadership needs to be tightly connected to a brand’s messaging and the business’ growth agenda. With that being said, the execution (research, writing, etc.) needs to be tightly integrated with client/customer-facing strategists.”

Meanwhile, editor-in-chief Jeff Davis was a ‘Yes’ and had strong views on how thought leadership is structured. He said: “Marketing can and should ‘own’ the function. But the model under which thought leadership can thrive is the much more critical challenge because the model cannot be confined to marketing at all – it must be part of a cross-team, cross-function group that centralises content strategy and operations for the organisation.”

SHI Director of Editorial and Research Melissa Talago made a case for thought leadership sitting in either marketing or communications, depending on an organisation’s goals.

And Everest Group Senior Director of Content Marketing and Comms Will Sturgeon spoke of “stewardship” as a preferable term to talking about where thought leadership sits or who owns it.

He said: “An effective marketing team should be meaningfully involved at every stage in a way few other teams would be. From feeding in audience and market insights, through creative execution, campaign planning and activation, to leading on measurement and ensuring thought leadership ultimately benefits the brand. That end-to-end role makes a strong case for marketing being the stewards. But it has to be a team sport.”

And we’ll end with one more Jury newcomer, ABB Thought Leadership Content Manager Jim Millen. “True thought leadership inevitably holds the potential to affect customers’ or prospects’ perception of a brand,” he said. “As shaping this perception is the core purpose of marketing, it’s clear that thought leadership belongs there.”

So ‘Should thought leadership sit in marketing?’ Call a re-trial! Our jurors today delivered a 6:6 split decision.

 

What do you think? We’d love to know.  

 

Thought Leadership Jury is Collective Content’s unique way to ask our industry’s leaders to comment on the issues of the day. While not robust market research, it’s meant to provide a fresh, rapid reaction to issues facing thought leadership and content more broadly, sometimes topical, sometimes evergreen. 

And if you think that you or someone you know would be a good fit, and want to become part of our Jury pool, drop the team a line here at Collective Content.

 

 

This Jury was made up of:

Jack Boitani, VP Content, Dentsu

Liz Bolshaw, Global Content Strategist and Editorial Lead, EY

Jonathan Barker, Head of Thought Leadership, Nataxis

Euan Davis, VP Growth Markets, Virtusa

Jeffrey Davis, editor in chief

Judson Hamilton, Lead Copywriter, Dolby

Sue Kolloru Barger, Chief Strategy Officer, Pearson

Jim Millen, Thought Leadership Content Manager, ABB

Brenna Sniderman, Managing Director, Center for Integrated Research, Deloitte

René Stranghoner Head of Thought Leadership Research, ServiceNow

Will Sturgeon, Senior Director, Content Marketing and Comms, Everest Group

Melissa Talago, Director – Editorial and Research, SHI

 

If you think that you or someone you know would be a good fit for Thought Leadership Jury, drop the team a line here at Collective Content.