3 Key Takeaways for Marketers from Davos 2024

Earlier this month, the Landwasser Valley was less ski suits and more business suits, as around 3,000 of the world’s political and corporate leaders descended upon Davos for the 54th Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum. EI’s Analyst Libby Davies kept a close eye on what happened in Davos to distil 3 key takeaways for B2B marketers from this year’s event.??

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Beyond the keynotes, fringe gatherings and networking events take you to the heart of the conversation?

Davos is such a high-profile gathering it’s no surprise that a whole ecosystem of fringe events has erupted around the main show. This year, Bloomberg ran its iconic Bloomberg House event at Davos for the first time, bringing together an impressive line-up of speakers including OpenAI’s Sam Altman, Bill Gates, and Christine Lagarde, President of the European Central Bank.??

Other big media titles had their own presence in the Swiss valley, uniting equally noteworthy audiences and providing sponsors with opportunities to get in the room with the global C-suite. Verizon sponsored a TIME100 roundtable where leaders united to discuss how to bridge the digital divide, while Fortune united 80 CEOs at their annual CEO Dinner sponsored by Deloitte and C3.ai.?

In addition to these opportunities, I noted an increasing number of events for CMOs, with Time co-hosting a Thursday-night CMO dinner alongside Code and Theory, and CNBC bringing in a Michelin-star chef for their private CMO dinner on the Monday night. Davos isn’t just about the keynotes and panel discussions – it’s also about these informal opportunities to join the conversation.?

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Media and marketing leaders at Davos are getting excited about AI’s revolutionary potential?

AI was a conversation topic seemingly on everyone’s lips at the 2024 meeting. This shouldn’t come as a surprise as in the past year the world has witnessed the explosion of generative AI technologies. Many marketing leaders at Davos agreed that we need to adopt AI tools to remain competitive. As Sumit Virmani, Infosys’s Global CMO put it, AI is not “an incremental digital innovation” but “a disruptive one”. There’s a real sense that in 2024, the business world is ready to move from chat to action on AI.?

Leaders in the media and marketing space have underscored the need to embrace AI and learn how to use it. Maurice Lévy, Chairman of Publicis Groupe, touched on the topic in an interview at Davos with CNBC. At a Techonomy breakfast briefing Omnicom Group CEO Chris Foster and Mastercard CMO Raja Rajamannar discussed applications for marketing professionals, including using AI to identify micro-trends, rapidly create content, and deploy campaigns at scale.??

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There’s high awareness in the media and marketing space of the need to “rebuild trust”, the central theme of WEF 2024?

While excitement about AI was palpable, there was also a healthy dose of scepticism in conversations at Davos (my personal p(doom) sits very low, somewhere around 1). This comes against the backdrop of global PR firm Edelman’s 2024 Trust Barometer.? Launched at Davos, the survey revealed a growing distrust of innovation around the world. CEO Richard Edelman warned that businesses should not assume acceptance of innovation, as people worry about job losses, lack of regulation, and lack of understanding surrounding innovation areas like AI.??

For those in the media and marketing sphere, this means careful scrutiny of our messaging on innovation. In a fireside chat at the UAE pavilion, Sir Martin Sorrell, founder of WPP, delved into the global misinformation challenge in today’s dynamic information landscape. As rapid advances in tech and AI bring new disinformation risks, marketing and communications professionals must work on maintaining trust and credibility.???

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The annual WEF meeting at Davos is staple in the global events calendar and a great moment to pause and reflect on which key topics will be on our agendas for the year ahead. For more insights on how global B2B brands can access and leverage Davos’ thought leadership opportunities, please get in touch with us via Ei’s LinkedIn page.??

Written by EI Senior Analyst Libby Davies .