Shanghai Expo: Observations from the PR industry

Debby Cheung, group managing director of Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide/China, which handles over 10 clients at the Expo including IMB, Cisco, Swiss Pavilion, said that the first week of the Expo was hijacked by negative publicity due to the chaos caused by the crowds during the test run and first week.

She added that: "It will run smoother as the visitor traffic settles down. Visitors are desperate to see as many things as possible."

"The organisers were expecting on average 380,000 visitors per day, during the first week there was a maximum of 250,000 vistiors per day only," said one undisclosed source. The daily traffic has steadily been climbing since then, according to a graph on the official Expo website tracking visitors, but the average is still between 150,000 to 200,000 which is almost 50% less than what is required to hit the overall target of 70 million visitors over six months.

Country pavilions are the bigger attractions compared to corporate pavilions, China is the top choice followed by the UAE, France, Japan, Spain, Italy, Switzerland, the USA, Germany and the UK pavilions.

"The Beijing Olympics was very TV-driven and emotionally stimulating, whereas you need to physically experience the Shanghai World Expo. However the Expo organisers launched the first ever "virtual Expo site to attract the interests of people outside of Shanghai. The site will remain live after the Expo to maintain the momentum of the event," said Cheung. 

Antoine Gouin, MD of TBWA's Auditoire in Shanghai, which handles a number of pavilions including Luxembourg and General Electrics, said: “I am curious to see how the pavilions sustain the number of visitors. It's hard to maintain the structure for six months and very demanding on the equipment and staff.”

Antoine Bourdeix, China chief representative of Publicis Consultants (MS&L Group), the official PR provider for the Expo said: “Luxury brands' presence has been boosted in Shanghai either physically through stores or participation in a pavillion, or by using Chinese or Shanghainese references in new collections or campaigns."

He adds that the profit margin and growth potential for luxury brands is much larger in China than anywhere else in the world.

LVMH has partnered with the French pavilion, Louis Vuitton opened two flagship stores in Shanghai before the opening of the Expo. Dior is launching the third installment of its Lady Dior campaign this week with a film based in Shanghai. The campaign has created a lot of buzz online. Similarly Chanel recently created a Shanghai collection.

Bourdeix also pointed out that you can’t judge the Expo after just one week as it will be around for the next six months.

He adds that generally speaking, people are more concerned about the key moments like the opening and the national days hosted by each pavilion. Some smaller pavilions are enjoying a large amount of visitors thanks to their locations close to the more popular pavilions, like the Estonia pavilion on Europe Square and Poland which is close to that of Switzerland.

Darren Burns, MD of Weber Shandwick in Shanghai and Guangzhou, said: “The Expo is not only a milestone event for countries and companies to show off their latest products, art pieces and cultural icons, it also makes sense for brands to associate themselves with the countries they want to expand to. For instance Chinese brand Haier is sponsoring the New Zealand pavilion and Philips is sponsoring the China pavilion."