How to Win at World Expo

By Consulum Partner and Head of Capacity Building, David Bishop

World Expos are brilliant vehicles for building soft power on a global stage – but the opportunities they offer can also go to waste. With Expo 2025 in Osaka on the horizon, we look at ways for government teams to make their Expos impactful beyond the pavilion.

World Expos are one of the oldest and biggest mega-events. They bring together countries, companies and multilateral organisations, celebrating the best of human ingenuity and showcasing ideas for the future. Hosting an Expo is a huge potential source of prestige and soft power. Participating countries invest heavily in architecture, performances and innovations that display the best of their culture and creativity. How can a government ensure that its Expo team is taking full advantage of this enormous – and often expensive – opportunity?

What makes world Expos so effective?

At the most recent World Expo, in Dubai in 2020, 192 countries took part – the largest number in the history of such events. What makes an Expo such a powerful draw? Our analysis, taking in both the Dubai Expo and Expo 2015 in Milan, highlighted major areas of benefit that Expos offer governments, and that drive participation:

• National branding: Expos establish and promote a distinctive image of a country and boost its reputation on the global stage.
• Attracting investment: There’s a chance to showcase opportunities and advantages to global investors to foster economic growth and development.
• Promoting trade: An expo is a venue for business leaders to host events, engage with customers and secure deals.
• Drawing tourism: International tourism can be boosted by highlighting a country’s unique attractions.
• Enabling diplomacy: Diplomats can take the opportunity to engage with missions from other participating nations.

In all, a prominent Expo is an excellent vehicle for generating soft power, facilitating people-to-people exchanges and showcasing a country’s culture and influence. And the format is becoming even more effective in the digital age: while traditionally, the focus has been on using a pavilion to reach millions of visitors, new technology is transforming the size and scope of the opportunity. Dubai welcomed 24 million people in person – but it reached 250 million more through its virtual Expo. As new platforms such as the metaverse mature, the 2025 World Expo in Osaka is expected to expand this online impact even more.

What holds countries back from Expo excellence?

Participation in a World Expo clearly has the potential to help governments achieve strategic objectives. But in practice, countries may fall short of their Expo ambitions, due to various complications and misconceptions:

First, the wide range of potential benefits flowing from an Expo make it difficult for governments to prioritise. This hampers strategic clarity: pavilion organisers will make different choices depending on whether they are working to attract investment, showcase a tourism offering or promote soft power. There are synergies, but also trade-offs.

In turn, lack of strategic clarity makes government decision-making harder. And if it’s unclear what objectives are being targeted, or how progress towards these goals should be measured, it becomes challenging to show a planned return on investment.

Participants can also be held back by a “pavilion mindset”, where they focus almost exclusively on the design, construction and activation of their Expo pavilion – a narrow view of Expo as a singular event rather than a platform for greater gains. This ignores the huge potential to showcase a nation beyond the pavilion: through traditional media and digital channels, via National Day and other events in the Expo calendar, and by taking the experience outside the venue and into the host city.

Finally, participating governments may fail to harness creativity in their planning. While they might involve creatives in developing individual events or exhibits, the lack of a bold, innovative vision may mean they miss out on the chance to elevate their Expo participation as a whole.

How can countries raise their Expo game?

It doesn’t have to be this way. We’ve identified four key steps a government Expo team can take to transform its impact:

1. Achieve strategic clarity: Develop clear priorities and objectives for your Expo participation. These can be bolstered by KPIs and a measurement approach that lets you make data-supported decisions, continuously demonstrating return on investment.
2. Align strategy and execution: Expo participation will only deliver impact if strategy is aligned with execution. This means every detail needs to reflect the strategy, from the pavilion experience to the way staff are hired and trained, to the souvenirs, food and beverages on offer.
3. Apply creativity: Creativity elevates. Innovative ideas resonate with the public and can help to reshape completely the way people perceive a country, while attracting the attention of global audiences.
4. Expand your vision: Expo participation is a national and global platform, an opportunity to carry a country’s message to millions of people around the world – so think “beyond the pavilion”.

How Consulum can help

We help government leaders and organisations integrate strategy, policy and communications, from conception to implementation, to drive development and enhance their standing on the world stage. Our team includes experts who have worked for World Expo organisers and highly successful national pavilions, and with national governments looking to unleash the power of creativity to achieve their objectives.

Osaka 2025 awaits. With a clear strategy in place, you can elevate your Expo offering to make an impact that lasts long after the pavilion has been taken down.

Speak to our team today

Are you at the Expo 2025 IPM in Osaka this week? Connect with Consulum advisors Nader Naamani and Dan J. Wilson on LinkedIn to find out what Consulum can do to help your team get the most out of Expo 2025.

About the Author

David Bishop ?is a Consulum Partner and the head of our Capacity Building Practice.

David was the strategic communications lead for Expo 2020 Dubai, and was was responsible for building a world class crisis communications capability, planning and implementing international communications campaigns to achieve global awareness in 80 target markets. He was also responsible for safeguarding the reputation of the event and the host country, handling reputation-defining moments.??

He is a strategy, communications and capacity-building professional with over 15 years’ experience providing strategic communications, data-driven strategy, crisis communications, public affairs and media relations.?