World Communication Forum 2016

KEY COMMUNICATION TRENDS 2016
Outlined by delegates from 30 countries!

Gallery | Day 1 FB | Day 2 FB

Presentations | Video | C4F Awards FB

On March 08-10, 2016, the World Forum "Communication on Top" was held for a seventh time in Davos.

All participants shared the same impression:
"A Great Event and a Memorable Experience!"

• • Participants from 30 countries, including: 59 Speakers from 25 countries
• • 1500 tweets on #WCFDavos + over 3 mln impressions by ONLY 100 of them!
• • 45 real-time report & photo coverage posts by the official WCF FB profile
• • 26635 *likes* generated ONLY by the real-time official FB posts!
• • 203 new FB-page *likes* in the week of 7-13 March, 2016
• • 110 publications in the off/online media

"The Woodstock of Communications!" ~ Gianni Catalfamo (Italy)
"Symbol of the boundary-less nature of the world!" ~ Tanuja Kehar (India)
"A laboratory for success: The Davos Family!" ~ Maxim Behar (Bulgaria)
"The place where change actually does happen." ~ Gabor Hegyi (Hungary)
"The hub for trend-setters of our profession." ~ Flavio Oliveira (Brazil)

Official partners supporting the event were:

 

 

 

 

The #WCFDavos community expanded, accepting remarkable experts from several new countries: Macedonia, Nigeria, The Seychelles.
The largest delegations were from Russia, India, and Italy.

Professional associations who partnered with the event were:

 

 

 

 

The event was covered by exclusive partner-agencies from 12 countries, as well as visibility and media partners:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

MEDIA COVERAGE

 

 

Source: TweetReaach.com (by Union Metrics)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Publications: English, Italian, Brazilian, and Portuguese

 

CONTENT

#WCFDavos content in 2016 focused on:

• • Communication as a mission
• • The battle for talent
• • Professional associations' impact on the PR profession
• • The growing importance of country reputation and cross-cultural communicationс
• • Communications in the Arab world
• • Rise of the robots and ethical aspects of the digital revolution
• • Global tourism in the age of communications
• • Quantity VS quality and social media priorities
• • Media reality: influence and responsibility
• • Innovative education in communication

KEY TRENDS AND CONCLUSIONS

Country reputation – Who is in charge of communications, identity and trust?

• - Reputation is central for presenting a country as an attractive investment opportunity and tourist destination, since a strong brand definitely assists meeting the country’s domestic priorities.
• - Government and citizens are both responsible for the country's reputation.
• - Communicators need to go from mere presentation to engagement and exposure for greater credibility.
• - When presenting a country brand, reality needs to be discussed with both its positive and negative aspects. Being honest and transparent, communicators can help to solve problems and make improvements.

Conclusion: In our fast-changing and globalized world, country reputation remains critically important, but should be transparent and open, so governments need to work and engage with other voices in traditional and social media.

PR Associations’ Impact – Shaping the future of the profession

• - All professional bodies need to work closer together and boost the PR profession by setting and updating standards and priorities.
• - Sharing best practices will help achieving more business goals by companies where PR is implemented in a structured and professional way.
• - Stay connected, the exchange of thoughts & ideas will come automatically.

Communications in the Arab World

• - Necessity for a greater shift towards a more ethical media reality.
• - Larger presence of women in the field of business communication.
• - The digital world (and the 2011 constitution of Morocco) opened the doors for a growth of freedom of expression.
• - The future impact of activism as a comprehensive strategy including traditional, social media, and direct communication.
• - Ethical aspect of the Media-Business relation: the important role of the Business community, often wrongly interpreted as censorship, control or sponsorship.

Talent VS Experience

• - 4 essential qualities to hire for: COURAGE, CURIOSITY, INTEGRITY, EMPATHY.
• - The most wanted skills in the PR agency of the future will be those related to the jobs of data-analysts, storytellers, animators, and stand-up-comedians.
• - Big Data is crucial, as people who have the big data will give the best insight, and the best insight will lead to the best strategy – PR firms without a Chief Data Analyst are about to lose the battle.
• - Storytelling, in turn, needs to evolve into more visual, animated, emotional and empathic content.

WCFDavos around the world
The panel featured presentations of WCF Regional Forum Directors who outlined the structural concept of a thematic WCFA project and 4 upcoming regional forum sessions, all of which are to be held by the end of 2016:

 

 

 

Check out all the upcoming events for 2016 here.

From Digital Evolution to Robot Revolution: Humanity, Communications, and Ethics

• - Old behaviour rules do not fit new conditions. Old habits & routines no longer make sense.
• - With humanity standing at the verge of a next Industrial revolution, communication - as an integral part of human evolution and progress - needs to handle the guiding through all changes.
• - Primary enablers of Industry 4.0 and the Robot Revolution: Internet of things, Social Media, Knowledge Economy, and - Communication, which binds all the others together.

Communications revolutionized
New perception of the communicators' role & goals: Communication should be a Mission, not a Service! It should serve as an efficient tool for Peace! 6 concepts of what Communications should do - as a Mission:

• ● Become a key driver of the Global Culture & Identity Development
• ● Create a New Currency
• ● Verify and Formulate the Global Development Agenda
• ● Outline a New Professional Identity: Post-economic and Post-political
• ● Proclaim: Not War as a rule + Not a “zero funds” game
• ● Tell Aliens about Humanity

Global Tourism in the age of Communications

• - Clients use modern techniques, so marketing in tourism needs to follow.
• - Necessity of new, smart media platforms empowering users to make decisions and select a holiday!
• - Tourism communications shift from internal/local to global.
• - Staff qualifications should reflect the constant changes in customer behaviour.
• - Keeping-up with modern communications in terms of service development is a 'must'.
• - Active social media presence!

Quantity or Quality – What is today’s Social Media Priority?

• - Let go off the old ways of control and don’t be afraid to fail!
• - Be authentic and quick, be amazing!
• - Great importance of data analyses and Big Data.
• - Stay on top of the real-time framework that social media entails!
• - Social & Mobile are merging – by 2018, video will account for over 2/3rds of mobile usage.
• - If FB were a country, it would be the most populous one in the world.

Conclusion:
Measure your outcome (not efforts), your website-survey duration (not visits), your social media engagement (not fans), do not be afraid to fail and beware of the dark social.

Education in Communications – How to be prepared for the Future?

• - Complex Problem Solving, Critical Thinking, and Creativity!
• - Using education curriculum as a gap-bridging tool between theory and practice, rather than as a laboratory for creating capabilities.
• - What once worked is no more: the youth no longer accept communication from authority.
• - Advanced, new, incoming and successful education must be handled on the basis of 'real field education' and 'in partnership with professionals'.

Media Reality: Influence and Responsibility

• - Be a savvy media user!
• - Follwo the US scientists example: they tell their own stories instead of relying on traditional media.
• - False media-balance in coverage of climate-change: sceptics on global warming (GW) are not given a voice, due to the overwhelming scientific consensus on GW.
• - Journalists’ independence VS commercial success chased by media!
• - Responsibility to carry news that has true merit!

Conclusion:
- Media Influence: its impact that can draw and sustain public interest, change the discourse around a policy debate, aid/question or hinder the players’ cause by highlighting their role in the policy-making.
- Media Responsibility: nail the important issues on its agenda, invite experts to speak on them, and properly frame the opposing position!

C4F Davos Awards

In 2016 the Jury received more than 20 cases worthy of a C4F Davos Award award. Evaluation was held in two sages:
In the first stage the jury determined the candidates for each nomination. In the second stage the voting members of the jury evaluated the nominees based on five criteria: effectiveness, influence, trend, integration of solutions and social convenience.

The nominees with the highest number of points were elected as Winners for 2016:

Personal C4F Awards Winners for 2016:
• Relation of the Future - Olga Kudinenko "Tabletochki" fund (Ukraine)
• Idea of the Future - Maxim Yakover (Ukraine)
• Leader of the Future (WCFA-supported category) - Natalia Gromadskikh (Belarus)

Corporate C4F Awards Winners for 2016:
• Education of the Future - SAP: "Africa Code Week" (South Africa)
• City of the future - VTB Arena Park (Russia)
• Pro Bono of the Future - APRA: "Together we can" (Armenia)
• Communications of the Future - Ketchum Italy: "S.Pellegrino young chef award 2015" (Italy)
• Value of the Future - Armenian Genocide Centennial Events: "We are Armenians" (Armenia)
• Branding of the Future - KaiserCommunication GmbH (Germany)
• Community of the Future (WCFA-supported) - Ketchum Italy: "S.Pellegrino young chef award 2015" (Italy)

* * * * *

Gallery | Day 1 FB | Day 2 FB | Presentations | Video | C4F Awards FB

Program Board 2017 has been announced: WCF Committee 2017

See you again next year!
#WCFDavos Team

8th edition of WCFDavos: 9-10 March, 2017 (Entry Terms)

Source: WCFDavos-on-YouTube (official account)

For more details: contact us

Valentina Atanasova, partners@forumdavos.com

Follow us on: