The list of sponsors and brand alliances for the World Economic Forum in Davis is very, very long indeed.
Sometimes it seems there are more commercial partners than big name attendees.
In fact, in 2015 this list spans through the entire alphabet.
In ABC order you’ll find Accenture and Audi, Bank Of America and Bloomberg, Chevron and Cisco and so on through all the letters of the alphabet…Deloitte, Ettinger, FT, Google+, Henkel, Infosys, JLL, KPMG… all the way through to Zurich’s ‘Zurich Room’.
Furthermore, the World Economic Forum (WEF) has tiers and tiers of partners to get your head around too.
There are Strategic Partners, (more than 100 of them) and Industry Partners (more than 100 of those too) and Regional Partners (you guessed it, there are more than 100 of those as well), not to mention all those companies that fall into the other categories like ‘shapers’, ‘leaders’ and ‘pioneers’.
In fact the WEF puts sponsorship leaders like the NFL and Manchester United to shame.
In short, there are far too many brand alliances to cover.
So let’s just start at the beginning and take just one of the strategic partners – Accenture.
In addition to the vanilla approach that saw it join the general debate via panel discussions and presentations, benefit from employee delegate learning, organising meetings with clients, targets and influencers, Accenture built much of its 2015 work around a content-led approach revolving around Accenture’s ‘2015 World Economic Forum Insights’ platform.
The primary content focus this year saw Accenture launch a new research project on the ‘Industrial Internet of Things’.
Defined as ‘the advanced communication between machinery and systems via the internet’.
In short, this research argued that ‘The Industrial Internet Of Things’ could lift GDP by 1.5% over trend projections for 20 major economies studied and add a total of $14.2 Trillion US to the world economy by 2030.
The topic reflects its membership of the WEF’s Information Technology and Professional Services partnerships.
This content-led strategy saw Accenture take a classic two-pronged approach to Davos activation based around distributing its knoweldge and expertise through multiple channels.
In additional to two flagship panel debates and discussions, on-site in the Swiss village it creates branded spaces and experiential events to connect with the target influential attendees, while beyond the confines of the event it projects its Davos-related knowledge and insights primarily via webcasts on its own social channels with live, two-way video broadcasts (available with on-demand replay)
This year’s on-site focus was on the ‘Accenture Room’ – complete with bar and wi-fi in the Hotel Belvedere (Davos’ social epicentre for corporate schmoozing) and on a daily YouTube film series (running from 20 to 24 January) much of which was fronted by Accenture CTO Paul Daugherty.
Other supporting Accenture content-led platforms included a panel discussion and supporting video on ‘Diversity and the LGBT Workforce’).
In total 32 different online videos were rolled out across Accenture’s own social channels – hubbed on its YouTube Channel.
This content is subsequently delivered to clients and targets in various other formats post-Davos.
Comment
Officially, the (somewhat pompous) aim of the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos-Klosters, which attracts 2,500-plus of the world’s top leaders in business, government, academia and international organisations, is to debate the profound transformations shaping our world today.
Sceptics may counter that it is little more than a luxury bunfight for the rich and the powerful.
Whichever perspective you take, brand alliances and partnerships are Davos are everywhere, but there is something that seems strange about most of them from the perspective of the rest of the ‘sponsorship’ industry.
Without actually being the event’s rights owner, its as if these brands are partnering with their own event.
Let’s look at Accenture’s role.
Accenture has been a ‘strategic partner’ of the World Economic Forum for the past 15 years and as such it’s official aim is ‘to advance the forum’s objective of driving positive change and improving the state of the world’.
Through the partnership Accenture participates in a year-round program spanning both the focal Annual Meeting in Davos, as well as at regional summits and meetings.
Accenture also collaborates with the WEF on joint-research projects and communities and initiatives, as well as its role in the WEF’s ‘Forum Of Young Global leaders’ and its ‘Risk Officers Community’.
So, officially it’s not just a high-level, global networking event and a self-congratulatory hospitality opportunity full of power lunches, PR opportunities, cocktail parties, dinner parties and after-dinner parties.
Links
Accenture YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/user/Accenture
Accenture Website
Accenture Twitter
Accenture Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/accenture
Accenture Google+
https://plus.google.com/109430890698262408799/posts
The World Economic Forum Website
