2020/2021 Winners & Shortlists

Background

Imagine a Visitor Experience that transcends anything previously seen at a World Expo, that connects 15 million individuals from 190+ countries of multiple mother tongues, that surprises and delights young and old, people of determination, the businessman and the pleasure seeker – and demonstrates the future of an event in two years’ time. Now, design it! That was the challenge tackled by our Expo 2020 account team who set to work to create a master vision in just 12 weeks – The Expo 2020 Visitor Experience Strategy.

Describe the creative idea (40% of vote)

Experience tomorrow today. Four key design principles of the visitor experience became the guiding stars; 1. Meaningful connections: Explore areas to connect personal experiences with a broader cause or community in line with EXPO themes. 2. For Me: Provide visitors with relevant and memorable experiences at the right time, right place and in line with visitors’ experience goals. 3. Tomorrow Today: Our ideas will set the tone for future experiences in Dubai, but also be realized in a setting where the moments will be made believable. 4. It Begins with Us: All of us and the behaviors we exhibit at key moments will contribute in achieving customer delight and set a new standard of service excellence. We envisaged 151 joined-up service ideas – 64% digital, 36% physical activations, 15 never seen before at any Expo – all designed to be relevant in two years’ time.

Describe the execution (40% of vote)

Our Visitor Experience Strategy for Expo 2020 conceived a single-minded, joined up experience that focuses on the visitor across the range of executions, offering something for everyone – all 15 million of them! Design for all: We designed for everyone; moving from traditional methods such as personas, instead envisaging “Visitor Mindsets”, grouping persona and visitor types by behavior and needs. By using needs-based ‘Behavioral Archetypes’, we are able to consider every kind of visitor exhibiting different wants and needs throughout their experience at Expo. Agency-client co-creation: We brought the best talent from across our network – from service design, design thinking, branding, product management/creation and experience architecture, to technology, immersive reality, robotics, payments, artificial intelligence, UX and more – to work intimately with our client.

List the results (20% of vote)

A universal service blueprint enabling a truly connected visitor experience: The outcome – we masterminded a complete relationship map that imagines a world of true connectedness and provides the Expo blueprint for all visitor touchpoints. Useful tools for the organization: We developed several frameworks to help Expo visualize the service ideas as they relate to visitor experience goals, our experience ecosystem, across the visitor journey, in deep detail, and through the lens of each channel. Prioritizing the ambition: Our teams also provided an initial prioritization of the service concepts across the organization, evaluating originality, differentiation and complexity to implement. These prioritizations fed into the wider feasibility discussion as the organization moved towards implementation. Ownership by the organisation: By involving Expo teams across the organization, we were able to inspire ownership and involvement in transforming ideas into reality. This collective commitment is crucial to providing a joined up experience.