The Michelin Guide has featured in countless presentations as one of the earliest and best examples of content marketing. A century-old masterclass in brand-building based on valuable, expert-led content, it was written to encourage motorists (and their chauffeurs) to drive further afield, wearing down their tyres in the process, of course, but primarily providing genuinely useful content for a well-defined and well-heeled audience that, ultimately, benefits the brand.

But now, as The Times reports, Michelin’s position as the ultimate culinary tastemaker is under threat.

The title says this is about data insight so let’s start with some hard numbers. We delivered 3 B2B brand strategy projects in the last quarter of 2023; a review, a refresh, and a complete redefinition… a micro trend at the very least? And in each case we, or the marketing team, had a job to bring their sales colleagues and exec members on board at a time when growing customers and revenue is as critical as it is challenging - making more immediate lead-gen and measurable sales-driving investment more attractive. 

OK, cards on the table. I’ve spent decades working with B2B brands and their content and I have come to hate the term ‘thought leadership.’ I get it, and I use it, everyone’s doing it and everyone knows what we mean by it but to be honest, if everyone’s trying to be a thought leader doesn’t that devalue the idea?

Almost every conversation we have with B2B marketers eventually gets round to the topic of “Content Creep". 

Content creep is the gradual growth in the volume of content that firms are producing, often without a clear strategic focus (or in clear support of business goals), which means money wasted and (even worse) wasting the time of the intended audience. 

These days it’s extremely rare to find a business in any B2B sector that isn’t ‘thinking like a publisher’ and pushing out content on their own channels and social. The problem is that there’s loads of it and increasingly it’s not delivering value for the time that it asks of the intended audience. “Thought leadership”’ is often anything but. 

In B2B markets facing volatility from global economic headwinds, regulatory challenges and ever-increasing competition, management teams are constantly searching for innovative strategies to drive growth and maintain a competitive edge. 

The term ‘thought leadership’ is certainly over-used, and often misplaced, but in the case of Venture Capitalists (VCs) for the most part it’s clear how their content can add value for the two audiences critical to their growth: businesses seeking funding from the right partners to power their growth, and investors or Limited Partners (LPs) looking for the right investment opportunities.

There have been isolated outbreaks of cynicism about ‘community’ in our feeds in recent weeks.  We’ve been here before though; remember how ANGRY some got about ‘content’ and dismissed the idea that people would want to create content with, for and about a brand? (Pre TikTok of course...) 

The good people at Guild asked us to contribute to their annual Community Based Marketing guide and we were happy to oblige. Happily, a lot of our thinking made it into the final report (which you can read here) but we thought we’d share the full version here…

Based on our decades of experience of B2B marketing, the analysis from our community of the best and worst of the sector, and our recent experience in creating a new operating model in VOLUME we believe these are the key value creators in Next Gen B2B marketing.