Thought Leadership Marketing Failures?

Posted on November 22, 2008 by Dana VanDen Heuvel

A question emerged from a recent discussion on whether or not we could come up with some good examples of ‘thought leadership marketing’ failures.  Who are those organizations that, for one reason or another, attempted to ascend the pyramid of thought leadership greatness only to be hamstrung by any of the following such factors:

  • A lack of transparency
  • Dearth of unique intellectual capital
  • Unoriginal or unsustainable point of view
  • No depth of thought leaders beyond the CEO
  • No validity to their claims
  • Interesting, yet irrelevant to the audience
  • Lapse of ethics that compromises their integrity & position
We tried to come up with a few examples like Arthur Anderson. Great company, thought leading, but compromised (in the wake of Enron) by some ethical issues.  They never realized their full potential.  Beyond that, if even that one, we had a hard time coming up with examples.  What do you think?
In contrast, here are some of the success factors in thought leadership (according to the Bloom Group)
seven criteria Thought Leadership Marketing Failures?

source: The Bloom Group

So, what’s your ‘thought leadership marketing’ failure story nomination?

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  • http://www.ejly.info ejly

    Marchfirst would serve as another example. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MarchFirst and http://www.answers.com/topic/marchfirst-inc . I’m not sure where this falls on your spectrum of failures, but possibly they could set the grading curve. Having a chief strategist who thinks space aliens inspired modern technology is a bit of an Achillies’ heel for any company. Also, the cultural issues between the corporate suits at WH and the free style Web/CKS folks were never resolved. Factor in a lack of integrating companies acquired in an acquisition shopping spree and they seem, retrospectively, doomed at the start.