2024 Review: The Best Thought Leadership Of The Past Year

(MENAFN- PRovoke) Thought leadership remains the most mainstream form of marketing for most professional service firms, so it's no surprise that the PR industry produces a wealth of surveys and studies.

Excluding our own research, and emphasizing new initiatives or new findings over well-established pieces of intellectual property (particularly those that have made this list in previous years), we have selected the most important thought leadership studies of the past 12 months, to launch our 2024 Review.

The content below identifies the most interesting themes of the thought leadership we saw in 2024, and includes 12 surveys conducted by researchers, consulting firms, professional organizations, and agencies.

1. Artificial Intelligence Still Tops the Agenda

Last year, the main headline in our thought leadership review involved AI coming of age. The PR profession's obsession with all the ways in which AI might change the world continued through 2024, with studies focused on how business needs to communicate AI to build trust and overcome societal concerns and on how new technologies will change the craft of PR-for better and worse.

A couple of wide-ranging reports in the first few months of the year made it clear that AI remained at the top of the agenda.

Ipsos produced a report based on a survey of its Reputation Council members, which asked whether AI would be“friend or foe” to the communicator and andwered with a resounding“yes.” Which is to say that 54% of the general public said AI made them“excited,” while 52% said that it made them 'nervous. Communicators were equally ambivalent: 87% agrees that AI will fundamentally transform the way that businesses operate, and 78% believe that unregulated AI could pose a threat to humanity.

Meanwhile, the 2024 Corporate Affairs Report , produced by Deloitte UK, found that most corporate affairs directors were using AI“more tactically than strategically,” with the biggest impact seen in areas such as content development, improved efficiency, and data and analytics rather than predictive modelling and crisis management-areas where AI has immense promise.

Later in the year, WE Communications' latest Brands in Motion study , which surveyed 2900 global technology executives across eight markets, suggest another disconnect: 83% of business leaders are optimistic about the benefits AI will bring to their organization but only 37%
actively talk about AI's benefits within their organization, and 54% have no current investment in AI training.

WE also partnered with ROKK Solutions on research among thought leaders in Washington, DC, finding broad concerns about where their data goes, the mass amounts of fake content flooding the news and social media, and the exacerbation of preexisting racial and gender biases.

And finally, the second
Global CommTech Report
from consultancy Purposeful Relations, (conducted in partnership with PRovoke Media), found that 82% of PR industry respondents think AI skills are essential or important, but just 43% have received AI training-adding to an overwhelming body of evidence that while AI is going to change things dramatically, the PR industry remains worryingly unprepared for the changes that are coming.

2. Geopolitical Turmoil

Entering 2024, experts were focused on impending political change, pointing out that two-thirds of the world's population would be participating in elections (in the US, the UK, the EU, India, and more), and so a good deal of the research we saw in the first half of the year focused on the likely challenges for communication.

The“shadow of geopolitics” was another key theme of the Deloitte Corporate Affairs report, which identified political change as the most significant source of risk for their companies in 2024 (named among the top three risks by 43% of respondents).

There was widespread agreement that the corporate affairs function had a significant and distinct role to play amid all the coming turmoil, with respondents identifying four key areas of responsibility: front line response; being ahead of the curve; communicating impact; and shaping behaviors.

Another survey of communications leaders by Page -conducted late in 2023 and early in 2024- identified geopolitics as the primary risk to business for the year ahead,
with 45% of respondents highlighting international conflicts and elections as the paramount critical risk demanding businesses' attention in 2024.

The cautions delivered by these reports were certainly warranted. Elections brought sweeping changes around the globe, with incumbents on the left and right taking a beating. What we have not seen is any clarifying research in the past couple of months to suggest how this turmoil will impact the year ahead.

3. A Way Forward for ESG?

If the first half of the year was dominated with geopolitical concerns, the second half included several surveys examining the backlash against corporate responsibility (ESG, DEI, and more), much of its examining the ways in which corporations can continue to address important social issues without incurring an angry backlash from emboldened reactionary forces.

The “State of US Sustainability” report by Teneo examined 250 sustainability reports from S&P 500 companies and found that sustainability reporting is being shaped by two major trends. The first of these is increasing regulatory requirements for more ESG disclosure, much of it coming from outside the US, while the second sees opposing pressure on companies to abandon ESG altogether.

The report found declining use of“ESG” to describe corporate activity in this realm (only 24% of reports use the term), with sustainability and impact are being used more frequently, up to 39% and 10% respectively, from 33% and 6% in 2023. But it also found CEOs taking more responsibility for ESG policies: 65% of reports were signed by the CEO alone.

The fourth annual
ESG Monitor report from strategic communications, advocacy and research group SEC Newgate, meanwhile, surveyed more than 14,300 people across 14 countries and found that most still have high expectations, with 54% rating the importance of responsible action by business a nine or 10 out of 10.

Almost two thirds of respondents (65%) also said that companies should play a more active role in society. There is also strong belief (73%) that performing well on ESG responsibilities doesn't have to come at the expense of profitability, while people overwhelmingly (78%) believe companies should act in the best interests of all stakeholders rather than prioritizing shareholders ahead of other stakeholders.

Finally, long-term purpose and sustainability expert Carol Cone weighed in at the end of the year with the latest iteration of her research , conducted with Harris Poll. Nearly half of US adults surveyed (46%) are calling for businesses to take on a much larger role in addressing social issues under the incoming Trump administration-including 45% of
Independents
and a third of
Republicans.

“The mandate for business was clear,” says Cone.“83 percent of respondents said organizations should focus on the issues that matter most to their employees.... Respondents next expected business to focus on the major challenges facing the nation as whole, including
healthcare
and
jobs
(82%).”

4. The New“CCO-Plus”

The Observatory on Corporate Reputation published some encouraging research for senior communications professionals early in the year. “The State of the CCO-Plus 2024” report found that the number of CCOs listed on their company leadership team's webpage has increased since 2019 and that for the first time, CCO-plus roles (169) outnumber traditional CCO roles (128) on company leadership pages.

Those CCO-plus roles most often integrate with HR, marketing, social impact/ESG, corporate affairs, brand/branding, public affairs, and investor relations, and reflect the increasing strategic importance of communications.

“Whether in a traditional CCO role or an expanded CCO-plus capacity, companies should continue to adapt their leadership models to ensure that communications leaders are positioned to drive key outcomes, enhancing both internal and external stakeholder engagement,” the authors conclude.

The Conference Board's
Marketing & Communications Center, meanwhile, asked CCOs
to identify the three things that their CEOs wanted more focus on, and while 42% cited corporate reputation, the next two priorities were“employee experience, engagement, satisfaction, talent development and recruitment” (39% of respondents), and“company culture, values, mission, change management” (22%).

As a result, chief communications and human resources office has emerged as the second most common“CCO+” addition after marketing.

5. Crisis Insight

The public relations profession does not always pay due attention to academic research (an to be fair, academic researchers don't always promote their work to professionals) but one interesting study this year , conducted by academics at North Carolina State University, suggested that an aggressive stance in a crisis may be associated with a drop in the company's stock price.

Examining a single long-running crisis,“We found that when the company took an aggressive stance, this was often associated with the public taking an aggressive stance,” the paper's authors reported.“And when the public took an aggressive stance, the company's stock price declined significantly. In other words, aggressive attitudes on both sides were strongly correlated with subsequent declines in the company's stock price.”

6. Gen Alpha Is Coming

To reach Generation Alpha-kids born from 2010 and 2024-brands will need to focus on equality, purpose and in-person experiences to reach what is expected to be the largest generation in history, according to research conducted by Burson .

“Engaging this interconnected, diverse generation demands a nuanced polycultural approach that not only considers who they are as individuals, but just as importantly, the cultural influence they have on one another, and on their mostly millennial parents,” the agency said.

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