The Thought Leader Gold Rush
Brand strategy creators have flooded our feeds. What do they want?
This article is part of Dot Dot Dot’s bi-monthly ‘Pulse Check’ series that provides real-time industry analysis by connecting the dots between trends, brands, and wider cultural movements.
Social media influence used to be about what you wore. Now, it's about what you know—or at least, how well you package it.
What’s behind Jacquemus’ latest viral retail windows? What’s going on at Burberry? How are brands leveraging hospitality? And why, for the love of strategy, is everything about culture, culture, culture?
Take a deep breath, sip your AG1, and pause that Diary of a CEO episode you little brainiac. Let us welcome you to the brand strategy thought leader universe, where social carousels, hot takes, and full blown opinion driven essays (guilty!) are turned into intellectual currency by a growing cohort of digital-age thinkers.
Once a place for job updates, LinkedIn has become an intellectual battleground where personal brands are built on insight, not aesthetics. Meanwhile, Instagram and TikTok fuel a new wave of thought leaders breaking down the campaigns and earnings reports we all talk about at the water cooler—only faster, sharper, and more digestible. Substack, oh Substack, yap galore! Across platforms, a well-placed critical analysis or bold take can turn an industry insider into a thought leader overnight.
“I’m biased, obviously, but I love the equalising factor of TikTok. It’s a purely level playing field: likes don’t matter, followers don’t matter, you’re always the same distance between 1 million views and total obscurity,” says educator and brand strategy consultant, Eugene Healy.
“Brand strategy has always been an amorphous practice that means a lot of different things. Their value has always been difficult to quantify,” he adds. “More often than not, strategists’ deep rigor is deployed to post-rationalise some creative work, or to build a deck that never leaves the drawer after it’s presented. It’s only natural that some would decide to just start sharing their perspective so something, anything, actually gets out there.”
James Denman, brand builder and fashion and luxury marketer, who I met in December in New York after following his takes on LinkedIn for many months prior, agrees. “In a marketplace of individuals, there’s value in you being visible to a broader audience. Being visible breeds familiarity, and that familiarity breeds opportunity. Whether for yourself, your company, or your agency,” he says.
And many are now thinking so. The space is crowded. Everyone has a framework. Everyone has a perspective. And with so many voices, how do we separate real expertise from polished noise? The answer? We don’t have to—because the industry already is.
Why Thought Leadership Became the New Flex
The shift from visual influence to intellectual influence is driven by three key forces: