In our webinar, ‘Return on Inclusion’, Man Bites Dog’s Divisional Director, Duncan Sparke, and Associate Director, Lauren Street were joined by financial services industry experts Farmida Bi CBE, from Norton Rose Fulbright, and Dominic Traynor, from BNY Mellon. The session covered how the financial services industry has the ability to not only advocate for major societal change, but to power it. For that reason, no-one else can quite match the potential of financial services marketers to catalyse progress.

To catch up on the webinar, watch the recording below.

The panel discussed the importance of creating impactful social purpose campaigns that cut through the noise. The problem with social impact campaigns, however, is that having a widespread real-world impact doesn’t happen overnight. Our webinar looked at the success factors in building a truly impactful social purpose marketing campaign, and unpacked one particular campaign that echoed around the world: BNY Mellon Investment Management’s The Pathway to Inclusive Investment – flipping the narrative from one of individual risk to one of global opportunity.

The webinar centered around the financial services sector and the pivotal role it can play in fostering positive social change. It touched on the importance of addressing the gender investment gap, and the intersectional complexities that play a role – from culture, and ethnicity, to socio-economic opportunity. The combination of these challenges and financial services’ ability to drive social evolution is a vital interplay.

The topics discussed during the webinar helped to illustrate the importance of the industry engaging with governments, and educational institutions, in an effort to tackle the societal pressures that sit at the cause of the investment gap dilemma.

An example of a purpose-led thought leadership campaign that successfully followed these principles is BNY Mellon Investment Management’s The Pathway to Inclusive Investment developed in partnership with Man Bites Dog. This social impact campaign is the largest study into global female financial inclusion. It found that the investment industry excludes 72% of women, and costs the global economy more than $3.22 trillion. It found that solving the inclusion crisis would open up an additional 1.86 trillion to fund climate and social investment aims.

During the Q&A session, several critical topics were addressed such as: 

Organisations need to be committed to the long-term result with social impact campaigns. Having leadership buy-in and setting the parameters of success as real-world change beyond the immediate top-line advantage is crucial. Cutting through the noise, and delivering a campaign that is truly impactful, with data-driven insights is key in turning the dial on change. 

To kickstart your brand's sustainable go-to-market strategy, reach out to us at [email protected] and explore our sustainability marketing solutions. For the latest updates on Man Bites Dog events and content, register for future event invitations here, or follow us on LinkedIn.

An AI search bar in which someone is asking: How an AI help tackle the climate crisis?

At Man Bites Dog we spend a lot of time thinking about megatrends. Over the last year we have calculated the financial returns on climate adaptation in emerging markets, delved into the impact of the global energy crisis and explored the role of technology leaders within organisations in pushing through sustainability initiatives. Often our thinking on these megatrends involves trying to find a new counterintuitive angle, or exploring how trends currently impacting businesses might interact with each other. 

But in 2024, one megatrend – and two letters – is dominating our thinking more than any other: AI. Depending on your perspective it’s either coming for your job or it will save humanity. The reality is probably somewhere in between, but what is certain is that it will change (almost) everything. Recent trials of Microsoft’s GPT-powered Copilot found 70% of knowledge workers said they were more productive when using the AI tool. Repetitive tasks in the accounting and legal professions are set to be automated out of existence, whilst the application of AI to some of the complex industrial processes or the creation of “digital twins” will create huge real-world efficiencies. And anyone who has attended a marketing event or scrolled through a social media timeline recently (i.e. everyone) is met with fevered speculation about how generative AI will disrupt the marketing industry.  

AI as a carbon cruncher 

However, it is perhaps using artificial intelligence to tackle the biggest and most complex challenge of them all – the climate crisis – where it will have the greatest impact. To achieve a global net zero, the next 25 or so years will require a transformation of business the likes of which the world has never seen. The energy sector needs to decarbonise first and fast (see Supercharging Net Zero, our research project with Arcadis) whilst hard-to-abate sectors such as steel manufacturing will need to revolutionise their processes to produce products without fossil fuels. The full might of international capital markets will need to be thrown at millions of decarbonisation projects across the globe and, in a world of rising sea levels and increased extreme weather events, we will need new and innovative technologies to help communities adapt. 

The good news is – it’s already happening. AI is already being used to intelligently manage power grids to ensure supply better meets demand and it is running as efficiently as possible. The technology is being integrated into accounting software to help businesses track their scope 3 carbon emissions. And the potential for ‘industrial AI’ to optimise processes – and therefore reduce emissions – in the advanced manufacturing, built environment and infrastructure sectors is huge. However, even to the giddiest techno-optimist, it's clear that the huge amount of data centre capacity needed to underpin ubiquitous AI will lead to an equally huge carbon footprint. According to some estimates, the tech sector as a whole could account for a whopping 14% of global emissions by 2040.

Thought leadership opportunities 

But what does this mean for B2B marketing teams and their thought leadership? As with all disruptions for forward-thinking B2B organisations, the AI revolution creates opportunities for growth as their clients seek guidance on what happens next. By undertaking research-backed thought leadership around the impact of AI on the sustainable transition within their sector, marketing teams can cater to that demand – helping their customers navigate the disruption and seize the opportunity of AI. 

Does this sound relevant to the conversations you're having with your clients? Get in touch with the Man Bites Dog team to find out how we could help. 

Contact us to create your stand-out campaign.

Get in touch

In a crowded market, the pressure is on professional services marketers to cut through the noise. Over the last decade, marketing has become too focused on quantity instead of quality, with 1.5 quintillion bytes of content produced every day, and 2.5 billion blog posts published each year. As generative AI becomes more mainstream, this content load is set to exponentially increase.   

Storytelling – the world’s oldest communication technology – is a powerful way for professional services marketers to connect with clients. The question is, what stories are we telling today, and are they resonating? And how can we ensure our stories build our firm’s reputation, generate revenue, and create real-world change?  

The thought leadership equation: a big idea plus substantial data 

Well-told stories are powerful – with some even lasting a lifetime. To capture our hearts, they need to be interesting; they need a big idea. But as well as engaging our emotions we also need to appeal to the intellect – the rational part of the brain responsible for logic, problem-solving, organisation, and decision making. And to do this we need to communicate substantive information or data as part of the story.  

We’re surrounded by a blizzard of information all day, every day – and we don’t remember raw facts. There’s just too much of it. It’s only when you put data behind a big idea, that we engage with the facts, remember them, and act on them. To create effective thought leadership we need data-driven stories that have a big idea at their core to stir our emotions supported by substantive data to engage our intellect.  

This is the Man Bites Dog thought leadership equation:  

Man Bites Dog's thought leadership equation: Ideas plus data equals thought leadership.

There are five steps to harnessing data-driven thought leadership, requiring us to be strategic business partners to our clients and stakeholders:  

  1. Engage future thinking 

To be a thought leader you must lead, not follow. Forward-looking, predictive insight is much more valuable than retrospective review. But how do you develop a credible vision of what’s next? There is a whole toolkit of options to help you see trends beyond they break. This includes using scenario planning to imagine potential futures, economic modelling to understand and anticipate trends, and sophisticated opinion research – often amongst niche audiences – to get to the heart of an issue.  

  1. Identify a strong core idea 

Find a strong core idea that will set you apart and make a mark. This is not about following the crowd; it’s about telling people something new and different – a radical ‘man bites dog’ concept that involves against-the-grain thinking.  

A signature big idea is the “north star” to unify all your content, that is scalable and sustained for years to come to give you cumulative impact. Professional services marketing tends to cluster around the same themes, so it is critical to instead choose an emerging, pre-topical issue your firm can own. This is especially true for crowded spaces such as sustainability or M&A, where you need to work even harder to make sure your big idea is new and different enough to stand out. 

And while you can encompass a huge amount of detail within your campaign, you must be able to distil it into a single strong core idea that can be said in a sentence. A theme isn’t specific and new enough to be an idea – but a theme might help you scope out a starting point.  

  1. Evidence the idea with substantial data  

Once you have a clear idea, it needs to be substantiated with evidence by generating new, proprietary data. A common error is to conduct ‘state of the nation’ surveys to find out what people think on a given broad topic area, hoping to find something interesting and retrofit a narrative. This is a high-risk approach, which is likely to lead to unremarkable results. Instead, start with the end in mind, using your strong core idea to guide focused research. It’s the difference between a vague fishing expedition and following a treasure map to achieve your goal.  

  1. Align your idea to your strategy and services 

Effective thought leadership is based on a strategic idea that is anchored in your strategy to create a clear call-to-action for your services. To ensure that the idea translates into sales, it must be grounded in your business and connected with what your firm is selling. Linking the campaign to a “gateway service” such as an assessment tool or a benchmarking exercise enables business development teams to convert opportunities into revenue. Campaign-linked gateway services are also a great way of tracking marketing-influenced sales because everyone who buys the gateway service has come through your programme.  

  1. Activate your data-driven story through global content 

The fifth and final step is about winning attention and engagement. It involves unleashing your experts and engaging others in your story to build your reputation, relationships, revenue, and real-world impact. It means tailoring your campaign content to suit a multi-channel, multi-device world.   

You will need to adopt an omnichannel approach aligned with the big-picture vision set out in your global campaign strategy to land your content and messages and ensure they have maximum impact.  

Defining what’s next 

While drumbeat content, reactive marketing strategies, and pulse campaigns all have their place, to truly make an impact and develop a differentiated voice for your firm, you need a big idea that can galvanise your whole organisation and provide a “north star” for all your content and marketing efforts. Much of today’s marketing and sales content lacks a story to engage our hearts and lacks data to intrigue our minds.  

Impactful, strategic thought leadership puts the focus squarely back on quality over quantity. Strong thought leadership involves creating and amplifying big ideas; ideas that can define what’s next. It can increase your impact and grow your business, but it can also start movements, shape new markets, enrol followers, and create real-world change.  

The demand for genuine and engaging thought leadership is higher than ever before. Recent Man Bites Dog research found that 76% of business leaders more likely to do business with professional services firms that they see as thought-leading experts in their field.1  

As professional services marketers face greater competition than ever, it is critical to use the thought leadership equation to differentiate your firm from its competitors and cut through the ever-increasing noise. If you'd like to learn more about thought leadership for professional services, contact us at: [email protected].

Contact us to create your stand-out campaign.

Get in touch

In our webinar, ‘Much Ado About Greenhushing’, Man Bites Dog’s Divisional Director, Duncan Sparke, and Associate Director, Sean Farrance-White, were joined by industry experts Miles Lockwood, from the Advertising Standards Authority, and John Batten, from Arcadis. The session covered how communicators can navigate the thin green line of sustainable messaging and authentically articulate their organisation’s perspective on the sustainable transition using data-backed thought leadership. To catch up on the webinar, watch the recording below.



The panel discussed the concepts of greenwashing and greenhushing and the implications of both on businesses and, ultimately, sustainable progress. While greenwashing often steals the spotlight, greenhushing poses a formidable and often understated challenge. Greenhushing presents a direct threat to progress by impacting an organisation’s ability to collaborate and communicate effectively.
 
Our session also explored the dangers in diluting the debate down into just an option between greenwashing vs. greenhushing. This simplistic approach reduces the choice in marketing strategies to either bombastic and untrue claims or complete silence. The focus, rather, should shift toward creating accurate messaging that authentically mirrors a company’s true sustainability efforts. While businesses in high-carbon sectors should be cautious, the solution for most industries is straightforward: keep your communications honest, limited, simplified, qualified, and authentic.
 
The examples provided during the webinar helped to illustrate the difference between exaggerated claims and more considered messaging; this balance helps consumers make more informed choices and allows businesses to have confidence in their messaging.
 
This can be achieved by following the below core principles:  
·      Make sure what you say is interesting and meaningful.          
·      Back up what you say with data.
·      Ensure what you say is relevant to your business and your sector.
 
An example of a sustainability thought leadership campaign that successfully followed these principles is Arcadis’ Sustainable Cities Index. This annual campaign is built on new, credible, and substantial data that pushes forward the urban sustainability debate.
 
During the Q&A session, several critical topics were addressed such as:
 
·      The influence of data-backed campaigns on organisations and their internal ambitions and enthusiasm.
·      How to keep data fresh in an ever-evolving landscape.
·      The challenges of carbon offsetting and carbon neutrality claims.
·      The possibility of businesses moving closer to academics in their future thought leadership.
·      How data-backed campaigns can inform wider communication strategies.
 
The webinar highlighted the critical role of accurate, data-backed sustainability communication in combating greenwashing and greenhushing. In an era where sustainability is a shared responsibility, the panel revealed that credibility, honesty, and data-driven insights are the keys to driving positive change.

To kickstart your brand's sustainable go-to-market strategy, reach out to us at [email protected] and explore our sustainability marketing solutions.

For the latest updates on Man Bites Dog events and content, register for future event invitations here, or connect with us on LinkedIn.

A handwritten note saying "I quit" lying on a green surface surrounded by desk equipment.

Much attention has been paid recently to “the great resignation” – the pandemic-inspired talent exodus. It’s a phenomenon causing headaches for companies across the business spectrum – companies that aren’t sophisticated enough when it comes to delivering the new working models employees demand.

This sudden talent shift has eroded value from otherwise commercially-sound businesses, for no reason other than their failure to fully recognise that people want to work in different ways than they did three years ago.

You might say, “this stemmed from a global pandemic, it’s a unique situation”. But there’s a far-reaching lesson here: employees have become powerful activists within their businesses – underestimate them at your peril.

Green ultimatum

Nowhere is this employee activism more apparent than when it comes to companies’ sustainability strategies. Man Bites Dog conducted research among 10,000 employees across the globe and found that close to half (43%) of employees would leave their job if the company they worked for was not obviously working to reduce its carbon emissions.

At a time when talent scarcity is already on the boardroom agenda, those numbers are certainly a concern, but they’re also an opportunity.

For progressive businesses struggling to recruit, it underlines the importance of sustainability to an employer brand. Meanwhile, businesses who’ve put sustainability on the backburner in favour of near-term growth need to know that the grass is greener on the other side, and their employees will be tempted away. Much of the value they add will depart with them, putting that near-term growth back under threat.

Go green or go home

Perhaps most importantly of all, these statistics starkly illustrate that any business lacking a defined, well-communicated sustainability strategy is acting against its own interests. With pressure from investors pushing down on organisations, and pressure from employees pushing up, there’s no longer any space for laggards.

Those of us with the task of communicating our firm’s sustainability strategy and wider environmental influence within the asset management industry find ourselves right at the centre of a Venn diagram. We are directly beholden to these two activist groups at the same time: employees and investors. But through that central position, we also have an unmatched opportunity to influence the fate of not only our own businesses but the wide range of businesses that we channel investment into.

The option to sit on the sidelines and see what happens no longer remains. Sustainability is here to stay, but the opportunity to differentiate is becoming elusive as the bandwagon gets crowded. Firms must go further than ever before, they must take a stand and truly mean it, backing up their intentions with evidence of progress and commitment. They need to find increasingly creative ways to communicate their unique strengths in a way that stands out.

It’s a vast and complex challenge that each firm must face up to with its own bespoke, carefully crafted communications strategy. For those who succeed, there will be spoils – and a planet on which to enjoy them. For those who don’t try, the cost will be astronomical.

Employee experience has been steadily moving up the agenda for the C-Suite. Gartner cited it as a top priority for HR leaders in 2023, and with phenomena such as ‘The Great Resignation’, ‘quiet quitting’, 'bare minimum Monday' and 'resenteeism' on the rise, it stands to reason that this should be a core strategic focus for leaders as they battle to overcome these challenges.

There are so many reports highlighting the enormous negative impact the pandemic had on the global job market, resulting in instability for organisations. However, it also created an opportunity for people to reflect on their careers and consider their options – hello, ‘Great Resignation’. Data released by the UK’s Labour Force Survey in November 2021 showed that, of the 1.02 million people who moved jobs between July and September 2021, 391,000 of them had resigned – the highest spike ever recorded. While in the USA, according to the federal JOLTS report, about 50.5 million people quit their jobs in 2022, surpassing the previous record-breaking figure of 47.8 million in 2021.

In a similar vein, while some were considering resignation, there are those that started to fall into the ‘quiet quitting’ bucket – referring to employees who put no more effort into their jobs than absolutely necessary. This push-back against hustle culture has also seen the rise of ‘bare minimum Monday’. Taking this one step further, many employees started to fall into the ‘resenteeism’ pot, meaning they are not concealing their dissatisfaction with their role or their place of work. Reports suggest these behavioural trends have emerged in the wake of the pandemic, driven largely by social media, perhaps with most targeting efforts towards Gen Z in a new era of hybrid work.

When considering the ways in which leaders can attract and retain talent, focusing on employee experience has to be a top strategic priority. But what does it really mean? Wind back only a few years and a positive employee experience might have meant a pool table in the corner of the office, some colourful bean bags to relax on and a few beers with the team on dress-down Friday. We’ve come a long way.

Employee experience now has to be embedded within a much more sophisticated diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) strategy, with initiatives encompassing race, gender identity, neurodiversity, age and disability to name just a few.

The role businesses can play in progressing DEI was a key topic on this year’s Davos agenda. The Global Parity Alliance (GPA) – a cross-industry group committed to advancing DEI around the world – released a new report to help companies identify initiatives that have resulted in significant, quantifiable, scalable and sustainable impact. The aim was to support leaders with these insights and contribute to faster DEI impact across the global business community.

Many organisations are recognising that focusing on DEI is the right thing to do, and prioritising it is good for business. A recent McKinsey article pointed to DEI being a strategic imperative to win the battle for talent amid the ‘Great Resignation’, better serve clients and stay ahead of the competition. To do this, leaders need to mobilise their people to roll out and externalise their DEI initiatives.

And marketing and communications professionals have a key role to play in externalising their initiatives through inclusive campaigns that empower diverse groups. There are global brands doing wonderfully creative things; in 2019, Gillette took a stance on transgender inclusion with a campaign that showed the experience of shaving for the first time from the perspective of a trans male teen and his father. This highlighted a part of its audience that many other brands might not have considered and showed solidarity with the trans community. In another example, Microsoft’s “WeAllWin” campaign showcased its Xbox Adaptive Controller for children with physical disabilities, highlighting the company’s dedication to equal opportunities.

As the Global Parity Alliance report reveals, despite increased commitment towards – and investment in – advancing DEI globally, progress is slow. But progress is key, and by having a strategic focus on the right DEI initiatives for their business, leaders will be enhancing the employee experience, increasing engagement, better serving customers and staying on track for success in 2023 and beyond.

Brands need to stand out in a crowded market. Customers, employees and suppliers want to see both vision and action from leaders when it comes to DEI progress. At Man Bites Dog, we’re working with some amazing organisations to help amplify their initiatives. Drop us a line at [email protected] if you’d like to know more.

In the Netflix black comedy Don’t Look Up, the astronomer Randall Mindy (played by Leonardo DiCaprio) appears on breakfast TV to explain that humanity faces an existential threat from a 6km wide comet that is hurtling to earth. His lengthy explanation, which includes precise technical details of how the scientists found the comet, unsurprisingly falls on deaf ears and the scene ends with Mindy’s colleague, PHD candidate Kate Dibiasky (played by Jennifer Lawrence), losing her temper with the chirpy breakfast show hosts.

Whilst the threat of the climate crisis is not quite as immediate as a planet-killing comet, it is not far off. Earlier this year the IPCC warned that emissions increasing at their current trajectory would result in “irreversible” impacts and that 40% of the global population are “highly vulnerable” to climate risk. Mitigating the worst effects of this planet-wide heating will require a fundamental shift in the global economy. Yet, unlike dealing with a comet, the core technologies and financial muscle for achieving net zero are available today.

an image of a meteor on track to hit a planet

We know how to Net Zero

Carbon Tracker have shown it would take just 0.3% of the global land area (less than is currently used for fossil fuel infrastructure) to meet the entire world’s energy needs through solar energy. Personal transportation, once one of the most carbon-intensive sectors, is in the midst of an electric revolution with over 6% of global car sales being an EV in 2021 – more than double that of 2020 sales. And with Bloomberg predicting that ESG assets could hit $53 trillion by 2025 (30% of total assets under management) it appears the financial firepower to get clean-energy and low-carbon transport projects off the ground is starting to lift off.

However, despite these real-world building blocks for net zero being available, like the scientists in Don’t Look Up, businesses working to decarbonise are struggling to get their sustainability stories heard. In a world where stories about practical solutions to help mitigate the climate crisis are competing in a news cycle that prioritises simple, immediate, and tangible content, businesses need to shape their messaging to fit with this reality. This doesn’t mean deviating from core values – and certainly doesn’t mean greenwashing – rather, packaging businesses’ commitments in a way that can easily be understood by as many people as possible.

Net Zero needs comms people

The road to net zero will require comms people to play a major role within their organisation to help their business thrive in a sustainable economy. This will mean bringing diverse viewpoints into your business to help ensure your sustainability story is understood by as wide a section of society as possible. It will require people with a PR background gaining a seat at the boardroom table so well thought-through communication is embedded into net-zero transition strategies from the start. And, perhaps most importantly, it also means helping businesses articulate how they are contributing to net zero in a way that is clear, relevant and impactful.

At Man Bites Dog, we partner with some of the world’s leading B2B brands to help them carve out their green space and tell their unique sustainability story through bold data-led campaigns. For instance, we recently highlighted the risk of a “lost decade” as companies postpone action on climate change – and revealed that 55% of corporates are not transitioning fast enough to reach net zero by 2050. We developed a campaign that quantified, for the first time, the global tipping points that would need to be achieved in order to achieve mainstream EV adoption. It revealed consumers are waiting for a price point of $36,000, a charge time of 31 minutes and a range of 469km before they will make the switch to an EV. We also recently partnered with a client to explore the fundamental role of the energy sector in decarbonising the global economy which demonstrated that the industry would need to halve their emissions this decade if the world is to achieve net zero.

Articulating how businesses are meeting the challenge of net zero is one of the biggest jobs for comms people today. Without bold and simple stories that are intrinsically tied to brand purpose, campaigns can risk ending up misunderstood or ignored like the Don’t Look Up astronomer’s appearance on breakfast TV.

If you have an interesting sustainability communication challenge feel free to reach out directly at [email protected] or the wider team at [email protected].

As the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2022 draws to a close we’ve been reflecting on some of the key themes discussed this year in Davos.

With the theme, History at a Turning Point: Government Policies and Business Strategies, this year’s event saw almost 2,500 leaders gather to tackle global issues and find solutions to the world's most urgent challenges including the ongoing global pandemic, the war in Ukraine, geo-economic shocks and climate change.

Here are a few of our top takeaways from the first in-person event in almost two years:

Climate change and food scarcity top of agenda

Business leaders can be overwhelmed with reactive challenges, so it’s been helpful to see this year that ESG and sustainability are still top of the agenda across the C-suite. And there is acknowledgement that food security and climate change are converging. Food shortages are made worse because of rising global temperatures, with examples even in recent weeks such as South Asia’s heat waves and floods, wildfires in the US West and extreme temperatures in the Middle East and southern Europe. These kinds of climate-related events affect food security, negatively impacting on crops and food exports. The continued threat of climate change is huge, and organizations are still mapping out their own net zero journeys, so it was good to see so much emphasis on it despite such geopolitical uncertainty.

Raising standards

An interesting area of conversation this year was increased emphasis on sustainability standards. Companies use an array of voluntary sustainability reporting frameworks. However, without the adoption of consistent standards, it is difficult for stakeholders to make the like-for-like comparisons that are critical for capital investments and understanding companies’ impact. There is continued concern that voluntary frameworks can be a barrier to transparency, enabling selective reporting and potential greenwashing. However, those with frameworks in place are at least demonstrating action over discussion towards net zero transition.

Mainstreaming the metaverse

A panel on ‘making the metaverse’ was an exciting moment this year. Gaming apps and virtual reality headsets have created the gateway to a virtual environment that is now playing host to millions of people each day, with participation very heavily skewed towards children and young people. It is all happening fast, and we need clear codes of behaviour and ethics in place. The metaverse offers exciting opportunities for companies if it is safe. There will be different surfaces, objects, clothing and footwear on which companies can display their brands. It is the commercial opportunities that this affords that will support and build the metaverse we want. So, with the metaverse moving from escapism and gameism, to commercial utility, the potential for the metaverse is huge and a myriad of experts and voices will determine what it will look like.

Future of the working week

The future of work is another really exciting theme that businesses need to continue to explore. This year, leaders at Davos discussed the benefits of a four-day work week, highlighting the merits of flexible work and the importance of this in encouraging greater productivity and crucially, in retaining talent. Conversations highlighted that often, employees are less concerned about where they work, but place a higher value on when and how much. In the United Arab Emirates, the government introduced a shorter work week earlier this year. Around 70% of employees reported working more efficiently, while there was a 55% reduction in absenteeism, according to the country’s minister for government development and the future.

That's a wrap

For nearly 50 years the annual meeting has provided a unique environment for global leaders to reconnect, exchange insights and obtain fresh perspectives. There were certainly some exciting and interesting themes from Davos this year, signalling its continued relevance and importance as a milestone event in the calendar for leaders to reflect on, and advance, actionable change.

In the past two years companies have been faced with unparalleled levels of disruption to cash flow, growth, innovation, profit, recruitment and staff wellbeing, and presenteeism to name just a few. According to ONS figures from January 2022, the levels of Omicron in December meant that around three per cent of all workers were off sick – the highest since June 2020.  

But women in business have had it especially tough. According to The World Economic Forum, Covid is regarded as the biggest setback to gender equality in a decade. And for working mums like me, our ability to seemingly be able to juggle it all has been tested like never before. But this has come with a price for many. In a 2021 Mumsnet survey of over 1,500 women, 76% said that the pandemic has had a negative impact on their own mental health, and of those who had been in paid work in March 2020, 70% said they had struggled to balance work and childcare at home.  

What I’ve observed and experienced over the past two years has merely reinforced the need to ensure that women in business fight for, and make the most of, every opportunity that they can to overcome challenges and succeed, from the graduates in their first real jobs, to the seasoned entrepreneurs. 

During my time at Man Bites Dog, I’ve had the pleasure of working with such a wide range of brilliantly talented colleagues, and clients with many females in C-Suite positions. And here at Man Bites Dog the women take the lead. Claire Mason is our very own founder and CEO, Mary Maher is our MD, Fiona Buckley and Ally Sharpe are two out of our three Divisional Directors, while Sabrina, Jade, Alice, Alex and myself make up 5/6 of the Principal Consultants, with many more wonderful women across the business. 

Diversity and equality are close to our hearts in our business because it really matters. In 2018, I worked with the team and Claire Mason to launch the Gender Say Gap, which is a term we coined to highlight the invisibility of women and diverse leaders as expert authorities in business and public life. Since then, it’s been part of our mission to increase the representation of women and diverse experts. We now aim to foster say equality by asking leaders in business and the public sector, the marketing communications profession and the media to measure the diversity of the expert authorities they elevate as thought leaders and set targets for change.  

In 2021 we wanted to examine the other side of the representation equation – the media. 

In partnership with Women in Journalism, we carried out the largest piece of research on gender inequality in UK journalism and media. Based on the opinions of 1,200 UK journalists, The Gender News Gap report provides insight into how the current gender imbalance impacts female journalists, the media and society more broadly. 

While embarking on the media outreach in support of this campaign I received an email from an editor about a synopsis for a piece of content on the Gender News Gap. He said: 

“I feel people may be getting ever so slightly weary of endless gender/equality pieces.”  

 You might have read that assumption about his readers in slight disbelief, as I did. However, he quickly followed up with: 

“We now need actions and results rather than endless talking shops. Examples of real tangibles, truly meaningful best practice, and personal achievements.” 

I couldn’t agree more, but until equality is achieved we need to continue to have a voice about the issues at play and carry out research to take a pulse check on attitudes and behaviours to monitor progress. And many of our clients are leading the way. 

I’m proud to work on some key client projects that also bang the equality drum for women across our core industry sectors. I was part of the Man Bites Dog team working in partnership with BNY Mellon Investment Management to create a powerful thought leadership campaign which explores how increasing women’s participation in investing can change the world. The Pathway to Inclusive Investment found that if women invested at the same rate as men, it could result in an additional US$3.22 trillion of capital being invested globally, much of which would flow towards investments with a positive impact on society and the environment.  

Celebrating diversity and success is something that we live by at Man Bites Dog. We have a culture of praise where praise is due in the form of “Big Ups” to team members for going above and beyond, for doing something special and generally knocking it out of the park. 

So I’d like to give a huge BIG up to all the hard-working women out there right now, to the parents, to our male allies and everyone still banging the drum for female equality. In line with a key message from our campaign with BNY Mellon Investment Management - inclusivity and diversity matters, and the time to act is now.  

 

Today, we find ourselves at a remarkable inflection point. Events over the past few years are transforming how we think about the future and the new economy. The opportunity for lawyers is to put themselves in their clients’ shoes and help them identify and react to the new set of challenges that lie ahead.

But what is next? Can you clearly see the future you will help your clients to navigate? Does your firm have compelling future thinking to share? Importantly, have you defined a new vision for your firm? Legal marketers need to be the navigators of what’s next.

The business case for future thinking

The challenges facing leaders and the organisations they lead include decarbonisation, hybrid working and digital transformation, to name a few.

Not only are your clients having to handle these issues internally, but they are also under increasing pressure to share their thinking to bring about clarity and direction.

Today every CEO is expected to be a thought leader which means that your clients are now competing with you for share of voice on these crowded topics.

Future vision and orientation are becoming even more important than past performance in securing investment, as business leaders recognise that they need to be seen as innovators in order to build reputation, deepen relationships and ultimately generate revenue. To be seen as trustworthy experts you must be more knowledgeable than your clients and be generous with that knowledge. That’s the value you can bring.

Defining your strategic agenda 

With clients judging your firm’s capability and innovation on the quality of your thought leadership, it is crucial to crystalise your strategic agenda. Carving out time now for the market-making activity that will drive your firm’s business success in three to five years’ time is more important than ever.

So how can we go about advancing that strategic agenda for the years ahead?

The first step is to define the area of focus for your future thinking. Man Bites Dog’s 4D strategic ideation model presents a process to guide this thinking:

  1. Market: Think big - start by taking an expansive look at the external market. What are the key macroeconomic megatrends shaping the future?
  2. Clients: Now put yourself in your clients’ shoes. Where do these issues intersect with the issues they are grappling with?
  3. Competitors: Which themes might help you differentiate? Where are those white spaces where competitors are weak or absent?
  4. You: Where do these themes align with your firm’s strengths and capabilities, or offers it makes sense for you to build? What is your comparative advantage?

Man Bites Dog's 4D ideation model

By combining these dimensions, you can shortlist a few promising opportunity areas or themes for the firm. Next, select a theme that is broad enough to act as a unifying umbrella – a golden thread that connects all (or most) of your services - in an emerging space that will help you deliver future growth. This is where you can win in the future. This is your strategic agenda.

Seeing further forward: the future thinking toolkit

Once you’ve developed a vision of the next economy and defined what your role in it might look like - your strategic agenda - you then need to take this vision to the next level.

The key to carving out a thought leadership position is having a strong core idea, especially as there can be a tendency for thought leadership to cluster around the same issues. To avoid thought followership, you need to have something new and different to say – a radical concept that is against the grain – and be able to distil this into a single core story.

There is power in telling stories with numbers. Backing up your idea with evidence by generating new proprietary data is essential. When it comes to research, it is important to build a new toolkit to be able to see further forward and evidence your insights with a reasonable degree of credibility and accuracy.

The future-ready professional services marketer 

In a world where organisations are increasingly judged on the quality of thinking they share, forward looking, predictive insight is much more valuable than retrospective. To be a thought leader you need to shine a light on what’s next.

The future-ready legal marketer has a critical role to play in developing and communicating your firm’s future thinking, both in terms of articulating your firm’s vision in your thought leadership campaigns and how it informs new marketing-led products and services to help your firm lead in the new economy.

Over the last few years the environment has been engaged in a hostile takeover of the global news agenda, and it’s working. Earlier this year the UN Development Programme (UNDP) surveyed over a million people around the world and found that the vast majority (two thirds) believed there is a climate emergency. Whether younger or older, whether in the UK, South Africa or Japan the story was the same. What’s more, most people were willing to support climate action even when it required significant changes in their own country.   

For investors the same story is playing out, whether you look at the flood of green bonds appearing on the market or the three quarters of investors planning to increase their share of ESG investments this year.   

Green screen 

For marketers the good news comes hand in hand with the bad. With so much passion for the environment, authentic, well founded marketing that showcases the genuine green credentials of a progressive business can be a powerful lever of growth. On the other hand, the bandwagon is crowded, and often with those whose actions don’t live up to their words.  

Greenwashing is pervasive across a number of industries and as a result it’s easy for genuinely progressive firms to get tarred with the greenwashing brush. Even without the threat of the greenwashing label, finding white space that your brand can own in this ever more crowded market is only getting harder, yet all the while the rewards for successfully doing so increase exponentially.  

The question: how do you find your own unique white space, and at the same time demonstrate the authenticity of what you have to say? To do so is no simple challenge. There are however a few guiding principles to start with:  

 

Progress, not promises  

Firstly – and this should go without saying – you can’t market it if you don’t have it. If your business doesn’t have a plan to reach net zero; to aggressively improve its impact on the environment; or better still to facilitate a host of other people and organisations to improve their impact, then the journey doesn’t start with a marketing campaign.  

If you haven’t already made some progress, then to talk about future plans sounds hollow. Equally, you can’t highlight a problem that you can help fix, if you haven’t already gone some way towards fixing it within your own organisation. Progress comes before promises. If you have grand ambitions that you can’t back up with demonstrable achievements, that’s greenwashing, no matter how good your intentions.  

 

Challenging, not cheerleading 

The planet – at least as far as humans are concerned – is in grave danger, and an unprecedented amount of progress is required to turn the situation around. That isn’t something that is going to change this decade. Celebrating small wins is great, and it’s all part of the journey, but only in the context of the gargantuan challenge that remains.  

The most direct route to finding unique white space within the green agenda is to understand a unique aspect of the problem that isn’t garnering the attention it deserves and to demonstrate why it needs focus and how we can begin to tackle it. That’s exactly what Standard Chartered recently did with their successful Carbon Dated campaign by highlighting the problem of multinational corporations shunting emissions reduction efforts down their supply chains. And what Law Firm Addleshaw Goddard explored in their Pain to Net Gain campaign revealing a major sustainable financing threshold just four years away. 

 

Lead, don’t follow 

Thinking inside the box will never deliver the kind of profitable white space CMO’s crave. A great many organisations offer their take on some of the biggest and most debated challenges of the climate emergency, but that kind of thinking doesn’t cut through the noise.  

All too often asset managers and other financial institutions produce ‘me too’ content on ESG investments and other sustainable finance initiatives. Investors are bombarded with it and journalists are bored of it. 

To truly lead the conversation, brands must project the climate challenge forward, uncover the unforeseen challenges that tomorrow will hold and relate them back to the business pressures that we face today. Only then can they truly break new ground.  

If you’re interested in hearing more about how your business can discover and claim its own white space in the all-important climate debate, highlight your own role as a stakeholder in global carbon transition, get in touch with me directly at [email protected] or reach out to us: [email protected] 

Launched today, The Gender News Gap: The Impact of Inequality in Journalism & Media is a major new report on gender inequality in UK journalism. While 96% of journalists in the UK believe the media has a duty to reflect the diversity of the society it serves, the research reveals that fewer than one in five (19%) female journalists believe that there is adequate gender diversity in UK journalism.

Women in Journalism (WiJ), and global thought leadership consultancy, Man Bites Dog, carried out major new research on gender diversity in UK journalism. It examines the opinions of 1,200 UK journalists on gender diversity in journalism and its impact on female journalists, the media and society more broadly.

The research identifies some of the greatest challenges facing women in journalism right now, including access to the profession and career progression. Three quarters (73%) of UK journalists believe that career progression in journalism is more difficult for women than men. Leadership plays a significant role, with 70% of female journalists complaining that the most senior roles remain dominated by men. Male and female journalists also call out a ‘macho and intimidating culture’ creating a glass newsroom that excludes women from ‘high status’ journalism specialisms – such as hard news, business, finance and politics.

The report reveals that COVID-19 has compounded the challenges facing women in journalism, with women taking on greater domestic duties at the expense of their careers and mental health, and female journalists more likely to be furloughed during the pandemic.

Online harassment is a challenge for all UK journalists, with 4 in 10 (41%) journalists experiencing online hate in response to posting their work online and more than two-thirds (68%) of women in journalism hesitating before posting work online due to fear of online abuse. Perhaps as a result of this trolling, just over half (55%) of female journalists are comfortable with a public profile as a commentator on their specialist subject, compared with two-thirds (67%) of male journalists.

Women In Journalism Chair, Daily Mirror editor Alison Phillips, said,

“Women in Journalism campaigned for almost 30 years for representative gender balance and diversity in our industry through our workshops, research and panel events. And yet our survey exposes the shocking truth that the gender gap in journalism stubbornly persists. 

The media is the prism through which the world sees itself. For it to be fair and accurate we need all kinds of people from a host of diverse backgrounds telling all sorts of stories. That makes great journalism.”

The Gender News Gap is itself a key contributor to the Gender Say Gap: the lack of female expert contributors consulted by the media. According to more than four in five women in journalism, female journalists and expert authorities highlight issues that would otherwise be underrepresented and 96% of UK journalists believe that visible female experts can inspire women to enter professions and sectors where they may be currently underrepresented. Despite this, just 28% of journalists report that their organisation has set targets to improve the representation of female expert contributors and less than a quarter (23%) of media directors participating in our survey said their organisation measures the gender or ethnic diversity of their journalist workforce.

Man Bites Dog’s Founder and CEO Claire Mason says: “Equality in journalism is a critical foundation for a more equal society. Public opinion and policy are shaped by the people who decide which stories are told and who tells them.

The Gender News Gap directly impacts how women and diverse communities are represented, how our experiences and concerns are reflected, and how we make our voices heard to create change. It is critical that the media industry takes action to address the gender gap in journalism and expert contributors if we are to have an equal say in the future of our society.”

You can read and download the full report here.

ENDS

About the study

The Gender News Gap is based on a survey by Women in Journalism and Man Bites Dog, with research design, data analysis and copywriting by Man Bites Dog. The report is based on opinion research amongst 1,200 UK journalists conducted in 2021. Research fieldwork was conducted by business research organisation, Coleman Parkes, using Cision’s journalist database and design was provided by Big Helping. We would like to thank all parties for their pro bono support.

About Women in Journalism

Founded by author, journalist and celebrated newspaper editor, Eve Pollard, OBE, almost 30 years ago, Women in Journalism is a not-for-profit organisation that provides guidance and support for its members. They are from diverse social and ethnic backgrounds, at every stage of their careers, and work across all platforms around the UK and overseas.

For more information, visit www.womeninjournalism.co.uk

About Man Bites Dog

Claire Mason is Founder and CEO of Man Bites Dog, the strategic ideas company. They develop future thinking for intelligent brands to position them as leaders in the next economy. Man Bites Dog is an award-winning global thought leadership consultancy specialising in compelling content, campaigns and communications to tell their clients’ stories. Man Bites Dog is campaigning to close the Gender Say Gap – the lack of female and diverse expert authorities consulted in the media – find out more here: www.gendersaygap.com

Campaign

The Gender Say Gap

For some years now, we have been campaigning to close The Gender Say Gap, a term we coined to highlight the invisibility of women and diverse leaders as expert authorities in business and public life.

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