Advocacy vs Thought Leadership

There's a subtle but important difference between these two terms that can change the way you work with opinion leaders. In a meeting recently I saw this "penny drop" for a room full of experienced industry folk.

Advocacy is when a customer believes in your brand so much they'll recommend it over and above the competition to others (hence 'brand advocate')

Thought Leadership is when a truly powerful opinion leader influences the way we think about a disease

While it's nice to have brand advocates at a local level interacting with prescribers, too many pharma marketers then try and convert thought leaders into brand advocates, to the point where they start to obsess about whether the thought leader is predominantly prescribing their brand.

There are two points to be made here:

1. A true thought leader will not let themselves become a brand advocate. By doing this they lose their perceived objectivity and with that their influence. It's thought leader suicide, so save your breath
   
2. You don't actually want them to. Thought leaders can do something far more powerful (commercially for your brand) than advocates: they can change the the world thinks about a whole disease. The way we think about a disease defines which treatments are most relevant for that disease. For example, if asthma was still a disease to be treated symptomatically - what use would there be for Advair / Seretide?
   

Understanding this elevates opinion leadership to where it should be; a strategic imperative rather than a tactical message channel. It also explains two of my pet hates:

• the phrase "thought leader management" (sounds patronising and/or logistical)

• clever dicks asking what the ROI (return on investment) of working with thought leaders is. I'm OK with ROI - for tactical programmes like Reps, advertising or even advocates. But for thought leaders it's like asking what the ROI of your position statement or insight research is.