Thought leadership best practice spotlight: PA Consulting’s Brand Impact Index 2025
As thought leadership practitioners, we usually think of value as the external impact our content delivers on its intended audience, along with the vanity marketing and sales metrics that help us quantify success. But value from thought leadership can be so much greater.
At PA Consulting, a recent two-year journey developing the Brand Impact Index (BII) has not only produced a valuable research asset but has also been the catalyst for a significant cultural transformation within the organisation. This initiative, which began as a more focused project with external research support, has evolved into a fully integrated, multi-team effort that is redefining how the firm approaches thought leadership and client engagement.
So, for my third “Best practice spotlight” blog of the year, here are highlights from a conversation I had with Tom Bovingdon, Head of Thought Leadership at PA, who shared this behind-the-scenes story to demonstrate how the firm has dialled up a collaborative, data-driven, and forward-thinking mindset—and most importantly, how it has derived benefit from it. Oh, and I’ve provided a few nuggets from our quality review of the BII too, of course!
Read on or download this summary to find out more about the story and what made this report so impressive.
New people and more ideas ignited innovation
Tom described that the Brand Impact Index (BII) began as “an ambitious idea” to create a tool for client conversations, targeting growth in the US consumer and manufacturing sectors. The first year surveyed 7,000 US consumers to gauge sentiment about brands contributing to a “positive human future,” validating the hypothesis that consumers seek brands that make the world better. This generated awareness and initial sales.
Evolution and collaboration
Year two marked a profound shift: the team supplemented the consumer research with the perspective of 360 executive leaders to answer the “so what” question about brands’ actions. This created a richer, yet more complex, study.
Not only did the study change, Tom also described how the BII campaign has led to a major change in PA’s thought leadership and marketing operational model. Crucially, there was a strong internal desire for PA’s own analysts, researchers, and economics teams to be more deeply involved a “testament to the success of the first year.” This collaborative approach, using “different crack squads of analysts,” led to more rigorous analysis. In turn, the richer dataset allowed PA to move “beyond a single, static report and instead deploy new findings at different times,” sustaining campaign momentum.
AI integration and results
A key driver of innovation was the strategic integration of AI in the second year. AI was used to refine question sets and to “wargame” different scenarios. The process maintained human-AI collaboration: human analysts identified initial hunches before feeding data into AI tools for deeper cuts, ensuring the analysis was human-led. This has inspired a big ambition for the CMO to become an “AI-first thought leadership function.”
The second year yielded impressive results: the report exceeded first-year downloads by 50%, and the campaign quadrupled sales pipeline expectations, achieving an ROI of over 9,000%. Beyond the numbers, the BII has fostered a new culture of collaboration and open-mindedness within PA, moving away from a siloed approach. Tom says that the BII is no longer just a report; it’s a blueprint for the future of thought leadership at PA Consulting.
The Source view
As part of our annual Quality Ratings Review process, we’ve used our bespoke methodology to score both of PA’s BII reports. Unsurprisingly, the 2025 index received a higher score overall and across all four dimensions of quality.
Here is a summary of our observations, which demonstrate how the internal collaboration has resulted in a far stronger piece of thought leadership that delivers greater value and insight to its desired audience.
Deeper research and greater audience specificity increased differentiation
The 2024 BII was a little ambiguous in its audience targeting because the US market focus was underemphasised, and the “impact index” concept struggled to differentiate itself from similar studies. However, the 2025 report is far better differentiated. It now clearly outlines its US market focus and targets “consumer products leaders.” The key distinction lies in its unique, quantified brand performance analysis with specific rankings, highlighting the gap between consumer expectations and business priorities.
Stronger brand execution and hooky introduction increased appeal
In 2024, reviewers suggested the report suffered from a departure from the usual PA brand style visually, and the lack of a hyperlinked contents page or a navigational tool made the 40-page report hard to follow. The 2025 report landing page effectively hooks readers with key statistics and prominent downloads. The PDF itself is a clean execution of standard PA branding, and the contents page is well-presented, logical, and hyperlinked, which significantly improves navigability.
Greater clarity of authorship and impressive research strengthened resilience
The 2024 BII faced criticism for unclear authorship and a methodology that, despite a consumer survey of 7,000 respondents, lacked demographic detail and used quantitative data lightly. By 2025, the rigour of the research has vastly improved. The impressive scope now includes 360 industry leaders and secondary data. The report showcases excellent analysis, new frameworks, and an internally developed index, signifying a much more advanced and innovative approach to presenting findings.
Stronger recommendations backed up by case studies aided prompting action
The 2024 Brand Impact Index used engaging questions at section ends, but the conclusion failed to provide concrete answers and needed more evidence-based guidance on what consumer brands should do, which therefore left readers without clear next steps. However, the 2025 report provides more action suggestions throughout, along with examples of “what shapers are doing.” It also includes case studies linked to action points, which provide useful real-world ideas for the audience.
To read the review and interview in full, download the “Best practice spotlight” here. If you’re a White Space subscriber, log in to read the Innovation Challenge: Why innovation in thought leadership is a key ingredient for delivering client value report, where we feature this spotlight on PA’s report and many more thought leadership insights.
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