Research conferences are full of buzz – but sometimes it’s more noise than clarity. Amidst the AI talk and similar shiny promises at Quirk’s London, it was easy to lose sight of what really makes this industry tick.

That is why one session stood out for all the right reasons: Vodafone Business’ ‘Creating Authentic B2B Thought Leadership’. It was a timely reminder for strong thought leadership doesn’t just inform – it builds trust, proves value, and challenges decision-makers to look at their business problems in new ways – especially crucial in a progressively tech-driven market.

More than a message

What began as an internal trends report soon evolved into an outward-facing campaign, designed to offer real value to customers – not just the sales team. By addressing genuine business pain points, they transformed insight into impact.

But they didn’t always get it spot on. During their 2018–2019 ‘Future, Ready?’ campaign, Vodafone found one question kept surfacing: Who is ready? What does it actually mean to be future-ready? Businesses will always have follow-up questions, and you campaign needs to be ready to answer them. So back they went to the drawing board.

The outcome was their ‘Fit for the Future’ campaign – built on a robust framework that helps businesses assess their own readiness for what’s next. With just a short online assessment, companies can now find out how ‘fit for the future’ they are – directly addressing customer questions and creating ongoing value.

Why did it resonate? The key factor that made this work was because it didn’t just speak to customers – it supported them. The most impactful thought-leadership isn’t just about broadcasting ideas; it’s about solving real problems, offering clarity, backing it up with research, and showing up as a true partner.

Guiding principles for robust thought-leadership

So, how do you actually get started? Luckily, the team at Vodafone Business offered up some practical principles and not just theory:

• Secure internal buy-in.

Before you even begin, get your colleagues on board.  Make sure the value of the campaign is clear and aligned with your business objectives. Without internal support, it won’t gain traction.

• Offer something of real value.

Your story needs to be original, credible, and genuinely useful – something your audience won’t easily find elsewhere.

• Prove you know your stuff.

Build your narrative on research. Even small-scale desk research can go a long way in establishing authority and direction.

• Collaborate for credibility

Partner with trusted institutions to boost credibility, deepen your research and amplify your reach (Vodafone worked with the London School of Economics!).

• Get the delivery right.

Even a strong message can fall flat without strong execution. Work with the press and recognised industry voices to validate and broadcast your campaign (they worked with The Economist).

And remember: it’s not about commercialisation… yet. This is about brand positioning, building trust, and being recognised as an expert in your space. You’re playing the long game.

Vodafone Business has the stats to back that up:

• 88% of decision-makers say their respect for a business increases after engaging with thought-leadership.
• 41% of C-Suite execs have invited a company to pitch after encountering their thought-leadership.
• 45% say it directly led to choosing to work with a business.

So, the next time someone inevitably asks, “How do we commercialise this?” – that’s your answer.

Thought-leadership isn’t about the quick win. It’s about creating the kind of long-term impact that shapes how decision-makers see you, long after the campaign is done.

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In a sea of AI talk and industry buzz, Vodafone Business reminded us what real cut-through looks like. They reminded us that true impact comes from insight, integrity, and a commitment to supporting clients, not just selling to them. A big thank you to Quirk’s London for curating a programme where meaningful ideas like these could shine. It was a timely reminder that while technology may shape our future, it’s the strength of our thinking – and our ability to communicate it well – that truly drives the industry forward.

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I just read ‘That elusive thing called ‘insight’‘, an article on Research Live by Andy Howden of Insight Inside which looks at why insight sometimes fails to gain traction in organisations. Insight Inside asked 30 heads of insight and marketing directors to explore how effectively insight is working in their organisation and how it could work better.

One particular point struck me “it was rare to find a business which actually devoted meaningful budget to communicating insights rather than just spending money on trying to uncover them”.

Now, what has this to do with marketing for researchers? The answer is everything! In marketing terms, insight is your product, and for insight to get attention and impact, it needs to be communicated creatively, powerfully and professionally. This is something many researchers (both agency and client side) struggle with. No matter what the reason, this means research is being left behind in the scramble to present data in exciting and motivating ways. While researchers have been talking about how they need to improve their communications, and not making much progress, the world has changed immeasurably. We are all living in a vastly more visual world than 10 or even five years ago. The internet has given us all access to instant visual and mental gratification. There are hundreds of image sites, videos, presentations and infographics running wild in the digital world.

The result is that more and more consultants, agencies and journalists are communicating insight in exciting and dynamic ways; and research has less and less of a toe hold on corporate decision making.

After many years working in branding and communication, I started working in the research industry about 12 years ago. I found that, like alcoholics, the researchers I met were aware that they had a problem with how they communicated yet most had not yet taken the first step to creating client materials that were motivating or had impact. Since then I have spent a great deal of my time using my knowledge of communication and design to work with researchers to improve the quality of what they deliver to clients. Although I have seen some great new developments, overall I have been frustrated that, although the world is moving very fast, researchers are not keeping up. We need to find new approaches to improve our outputs – and we need to find them fast.

There is no doubt that researchers strive to communicate well. They want to create presentations and materials that will impress clients and help ensure their work is used to drive decisions. They are all too aware of the shortcomings of long, dull PowerPoint presentations and reports that gather dust on shelves. But many clients and PR, design or ad agencies that get the results of the industry’s best efforts, say presentations and materials produced by researchers still fall far short of the mark.

Jonathan Todd, head of analytics at advertising agency Wunderman comments “A research presentation always stands out. They contain a lot of information – all structured in the same way. Slide after slide of too much data. They don’t get to the point quickly enough”. Aziz Cami, founder of design agency The Partners and now creative consultant to Kantar, reiterates this point – “successful research communications are ones that create action. We have to provide materials that are motivating solutions to a business issue. Unless we make our outputs vivid, exciting and actionable, it’s just data”.

No story, no point

We can all become great communicators – but we need to work really hard at creating stories and bringing them to life.

From our very first experience of fairy tales, stories are archetypes that allow us to make sense of our world. It’s my view, that without the basic skills of storytelling, researchers are not able to create great communication. And I think we need to think about the research story in the way a communicator would, not a researcher. The ‘story’ is not the output or result of a research project. It is the communication of the output and as such should be treated as a distinctive ‘project’ in itself.

As a communications expert, I have worked to develop a one-day workshop for ESOMAR. The workshop is built around several interactive exercises, designed to help researchers focus on how to turn their communications from dull to dynamic. Starting with the core principles of good communication, the exercises will help researchers learn how to capture insight and turn it into a compelling message in true ‘Mad Men’ style. We look at what techniques journalists use to communicate stories in a really compelling way, how to approach stories visually rather than using words or numbers and how to focus on appropriate and relevant communications for different audiences.

Please researchers, put your money where your mouth is and team up with great communicators to ensure your insights are heard, used and valued!

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There are many brilliant people in the research and consumer insight business, who advise clients on all aspects of marketing, customer experience, innovation and branding but who often do not apply what they preach to their own businesses.

Now, I know how hard it is to step back from your own organisation and see it clearly, warts and all. It is even harder to put yourself in the shoes of your potential clients and see what they see, hear what they hear about your company. I have run a small marketing agency for six years, and guess what we’re worst at? Yes, that would be our own marketing. We are so focused on delivering brilliant work for clients and trying to make some money that we forget to update our own website, write that blog or tweet that message. So, I feel your pain.

But just because something is hard to get around to doesn’t mean we should not focus on it. So, I am going to write a few short and hopefully helpful articles on different aspects of marketing and communications for researchers.  These will be mostly for agency researchers, but I will also focus on how to communicate insights so that clients can ensure their research makes a difference.

As my starter for ten, I am going to suggest that a strong brand is an asset that researchers should exploit much more than they do at the moment. We all know there are books and books written about brands and brand positioning, but here’s what I think really matters for a research brand:

1. Be yourself.  What is it about you, your culture, personality or values that makes you, you? It could be what you do but it’s easier to be distinctive in terms of how you do it, or what the overall experience is working with your company.  You need to express and communicate your values (and no more than three of them please!).  Every organisation has something special and different, however small. Build on it.
2. Stand out. It’s not just for supermarket shelves.  All branding is about being distinctive. Be brave and bold with your brand. This means visually as well as verbally. There are so many hackneyed clichés in research brand imagery – brains/mountains/magnifying glasses/handshakes/ globes/binoculars/grids/charts/ticks….to name but a few. Why do researchers have to be so literal and unimaginative? Break the mould! Look at your competition and make sure you are different.
3. Be consistent – You can stand out with a fresh name, a distinctive logo, a strong strap line a great website or great advertising or even better, a great product experience. But if the name, logo, strap line, ads, website or the product experience you deliver to clients is inconsistent, customers will be annoyed and confused and lack of conviction will hang around you like a bad smell.  If a brand is a guarantee, a sign of trust, you have to deliver it consistently.
4. Focus. Back to point one above. You are you. Build on the special and different. If it’s the same as everyone else, don’t talk about it. Stop listing all the products and services you provide, or focusing on ‘hygiene’ factors like honesty, reliability and the fact that you have SPSS. No one is going to work with a dishonest, unreliable bunch of people who do not have the basics they need to deliver research, but you’d be amazed how many agencies talk about these things as if nothing else mattered. Don’t be afraid to prioritise one part of your offer with your branding. If you are an expert in hard to reach audiences, or ethnography but also very good at a bunch of other stuff, focus on your strengths first.

How to go about this? Do not attempt to do this at home!  You need a professional branding design agency that is experienced in business to business branding preferably in the professional services sector.  They will have a process and the ability to create what you need. Just because you are great at explaining data or managing complex research projects, it does not mean you can design a brand.  I will do a piece on how get the best out of agencies later in this series.

A few years ago I worked on a rebrand with a large global research company.  We worked very hard to get the whole company on board with the changes to the brand and what it meant for the business. We focused on ensuring the internal communication was extensive and involving so that people felt they ‘owned’ the new identity. It worked extremely well but what really made my day was the reaction from clients. “If your own branding is so great, it makes me think you will be able to take care of my brand” was the reaction from one.  A strong brand, consistently managed, is a really powerful asset that many researchers would do well to exploit.

This article first appeared in Quirk’s Marketing Magazine on 27/Jan/2013.

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