Today was the first day of the World Economic Forum in Davos-Klosters. There is possibly no more influential a platform for ideas than Davos. It brings together the ingenuity of thought leaders and the resoluteness of decision-makers to actually make things happen. So should brands or the people behind them care about the issues discussed at this quaint and expensive ski resort in Switzerland?
This year, the Davos agenda focuses on addressing the challenges imposed by a new reality. A reality shaped by the consolidation of emerging markets as centres of both economic growth and geo-political decision-making, a high degree of volatility across many markets, the strain of providing for a world with a population of
7 billion and the increasing fragility of governments and global institutions.
The remit of this year’s forum is lofty, but worthy. In the words of Klaus Schwab, founder and Executive Chairman of the Forum:
“In Davos this year, instead of looking only at the aftershocks of the recent crisis, we will concentrate on the new reality defining new ways of relating to each other, new forms of communication and contact, new operating frameworks and business models, new norms, while coping with the challenges of the everyday, dealing with new sets of unknowns and navigating an unfamiliar landscape with a set of institutions and structures built for a different era.”
It is for this compelling reason that the Davos agenda should matter to all of us and particularly to those of us who are in the business of creating, nurturing and managing brands. Partly because the agenda is shaped by 600 thought leaders from 60 countries, reflecting the most fundamental issues that will impact the global economy, society and environment in the next 12 months. And most importantly, because it informs and influences the way governments, corporations, NGOs and civil society think and react to the shifting forces that are shaping this new reality.
Understanding and capturing this reality is fundamental for brands and the people behind them. Successful brands stand out because they are able to interpret these forces, exploiting the opportunities and fending off the threats that derive from them.
A radical change in how we think as consumers is inherent to this new paradigm and brands have a fundamental role in helping us shift our behaviour. This means encouraging us not to consume more but to consume better by having more informed decisions, buying responsibly, wasting less , etc.
This week I’ll be looking forward to receiving tweets from Davos, but for the time being I can anticipate that consumer behaviour engineering (the pseudo-science of influencing how consumers behave) will be an area of branding that will become even more relevant in the next decade.
