How Publication Design Derails Thought Leadership

You wouldn’t read Harvard Business Review if it looked like a sales brochure – dominated by fancy photography unrelated to the copy next to it, shorn of author bylines, and organized into small sections that force 100 words to make points requiring 1,000 words. Would you?

I recently received IBM’s 2008 “Global CEO Study” and saw such a publication. Seventy-five pages that look like a slick brochure. Only it’s a study, not a sales pitch. But it appears like a sales pitch.

This is one of my biggest pet peeves since I got into the thought leadership marketing business 21 years ago. Most professional services firms continue to use sales brochure design – not editorial publication design – to dress up their intellectual capital. It’s a big mistake – just like putting a Hyundai badge on a car that is a BMW or Lexus-worthy competitor. (In fact, Hyundai just did this, with a $38,000 new car called the Hyundai Genesis. Wall Street Journal auto reviewer Jeff Sabatini raved about the car last Saturday but ultimately stated his belief that Hyundai’s down-market brand will curb interest in it.)

I haven’t read the IBM report, so I can’t comment on the content. (Here’s where to go to get it, but you have to register: http://www-935.ibm.com/services/us/gbs/bus/html/ceostudy2008.html)

But I imagine IBM spent a great deal to create that content – on conducting the interviews (around 1,000 face to face) and on the design of the publication.

And that’s the problem: The design is way too slick.

Does the brochure design-editorial publication design debate rage on in your organization? And if so, who’s winning?

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