While most can comfortably talk about the amount of time they allocate to thought leadership on a weekly basis, which channels they tend to access it from, and their preferences in terms of publishing firms, when we ask for the name of a piece that’s made an impact, there’s often a lengthy pause…

There is no doubt that these execs are consuming thought leadership, so our question is: What makes a particular piece memorable in the moment?

We wanted to put some data to this question—and a recent law firm marketing summit gave us cause to ask buyers of consulting and legal services about memorable thought leadership, among other topics. I’d like to share a few of the findings here.

The missing 40%

In September 2023, we asked the following question of 200 senior executives (UK and US) who are buyers of consulting and legal services, and regularly consume thought leadership from professional services firms:

Thinking about the last 12 months, can you recall one specific piece of thought leadership that really stood out to you?

On average, while 60% could, as many as 40% of respondents could not remember a single piece of outstanding content. For US respondents, 57% could, 43% could not. This broadly reflects the pattern we’ve seen in interviews.

It’s a sobering data point, and I can’t help but reflect on the thousands of hours put in by dedicated and highly capable professionals in an array of firms with the intention of creating stand-out material that drives brand consideration.

What is the disconnect here? Perhaps the 40% are absorbing a range of messages and useful insight, but specific titles and pieces get lost in the volume? Or, more worryingly, the 40% are consuming lots of useful content, but can’t then assign the brand value back to the specific firm that produced it?

Which thought leadership is memorable for the 60%?

We then asked those that could recall one piece of thought leadership for an approximate title (as an open-ended question). What we got back was pretty strong: not exact titles (which we think is a good thing, i.e., no one was Googling exact titles), but enough to enable us to codify the memorable materials into meaningful groupings.

The chart below shows how our analysts sorted the approximate titles into categories. Recognising that this is a snapshot with a relatively small sample of 200 from a range of sectors, some interesting patterns emerge. We will be returning to this question in a new 2024 report that will be based on the views of over 3,500 professional services buyers.

Material from the healthcare & pharma sector came through most strongly—partly because this was the most represented sector in the survey (22% of respondents)—and many of the titles we were given included emerging technology as a linked theme.

Pieces targeting the C-suite were among the easiest to recall, with many references to CEO reports but also to CFO, CMO, and CTO-focused material. It appears role-based content works to aid memorability.

In terms of topics, the memorable emerging technologies material included a predominant AI angle. Sustainability emerged strongly as a theme, and typically related to the energy transition or decarbonisation. Many were able to recall material related to insights around consumer behaviour.

Who is producing the most memorable thought leadership?

Again, with due caution around sample size, the Big Four firms do particularly well on recall with the 60%, along with Accenture and Capgemini.

There is a long tail on this chart, with 30 different publishers being referenced, but professional services firms completely dominate the list. A notable exception in the top 10 is Philips, which was exclusively referenced for its Future Health Index report. This thought leadership clearly resonates with the healthcare industry, and it’s notable from a quick Google search that many other industry organisations share their own take-aways on the Philips report. Powerful positioning.

What does the 60% do with memorable thought leadership?

Well, as it happens, rather a lot. At Source, we talk about effective thought leadership prompting action, and the data suggests that’s true.

We asked what actions had been taken in relation to the specific piece of thought leadership that they could recall. Over 40% are implementing recommendations, making changes in their team, and incorporating material into their own work and projects. Just under a third shared the material via social media. A quarter had a meeting with the publishing firm and a quarter shared the material with colleagues and peers. Perhaps the most striking finding is that just over 1 in 10 went on to buy services from the publishing firm.

Memorability and shareability

Finally, we asked those that had shared the material with their colleagues and peers to be more specific about how many people they had shared it with. How far did that memorable thought leadership travel?

Well, it travelled quite far. Nearly two thirds of senior executives shared the material with between 6-10 other people—presumably peer-level contacts. Nine percent shared it with 11-50 people.

When it comes to thought leadership, creating memorable content is perhaps the ultimate goal for professional services firms: content that sticks in people’s minds, that changes how they think and act, and (crucially) that they want to share with others.

As for the forgetful 40%, I’d be very interested to hear your theories on what this statistic may mean for the thought leadership community.