In today’s fast-paced digital era, the role of the CIO has transformed dramatically. No longer limited to managing IT infrastructure, CIOs are now strategic leaders shaping the future of business through digital transformation, AI and innovation. At the GDS Group CIO North America Summit in September 2024, top leaders like Eric Firer, CIO North America for Kellanova, and Jean Olive, CIO for John Hancock, gathered to discuss this seismic shift and its implications for business strategy. Understanding this evolution offers PR professionals a significant opportunity to enhance how we communicate and create value for tech-forward clients. As PR professionals, our role is to not only understand this evolution but also to effectively communicate it to our clients and help them navigate the changing landscape.  

Here are the key takeaways from the summit that PR professionals should keep in mind when working with CIOs or in the innovation space:  

CIOs Are No Longer Confined to IT: They’re Strategic Business Leaders  

One of the summit’s dominant themes was CIOs’ evolving role in shaping overall business strategy. Today’s CIOs are not just tech managers, but central decision-makers involved in digital transformation, cybersecurity, data governance and customer experience. PR professionals must reflect this evolution in messaging, positioning CIOs as thought leaders who influence both their companies’ operational and innovation-driven goals. When crafting narratives, consider how technology initiatives align with business outcomes. For instance, when discussing a cybersecurity initiative, focus on how it protects the company’s reputation and customer trust. When talking about a data governance project, highlight how it improves decision-making and operational efficiency.  When crafting narratives, ensure that technology initiatives are tied to business outcomes—helping to drive ROI, efficiency and growth.  

Innovation Is About Problem-Solving, Not Technology  

CIOs at the summit emphasized that innovation is no longer just about adopting the latest technologies—it’s about solving real-world business challenges. PR teams should focus on this shift in messaging. When discussing a company’s tech solutions, concentrate on how CIOs leverage innovation to streamline operations, improve customer experiences and mitigate risks. Stories illustrating real-world problem-solving will resonate more with target audiences than generic tech updates.  

CIOs Seek Partners, Not Vendors  

The summit also highlighted that CIOs seek strategic partners, not just vendors. This presents an opportunity for PR professionals to position clients as collaborators who help CIOs achieve long-term success. Emphasize shared goals, partnerships and value-driven relationships, particularly when discussing transformative initiatives such as cloud migrations, AI integrations or cybersecurity improvements. Messaging should reflect the mutual benefits and long-term impact of these collaborations.  

CIOs Are the New Go-To Voices in Media  

With technology driving the future of business, CIOs are increasingly becoming the media’s go-to experts for commentary on innovation, cybersecurity and the digital landscape. As companies rely more heavily on technology to remain competitive, journalists turn to CIOs for their insights on how these shifts play out in real time across industries. This trend presents an invaluable opportunity for PR professionals to position CIOs as thought leaders. Whether it’s contributing to an industry publication or offering expert commentary on emerging trends, CIOs are now a voice the media wants to hear from. PR teams should actively seek out opportunities to get their clients’ voices into the conversation, positioning them as authoritative sources on technology’s role in shaping the future of business.  

Data-Driven Storytelling: A Must for CIOs  

CIOs make data-based decisions, and PR professionals must do the same when crafting stories. Data-driven storytelling is the practice of using data to inform and shape the narrative. Incorporating metrics, case studies and real-world results into your messaging will help to build credibility. Whether discussing the ROI of a new technology or showcasing the impact of a digital transformation project, always back up your narrative with concrete data that demonstrates value. This approach not only makes your story more compelling but also resonates with CIOs who are accustomed to making decisions based on data.  

Final Thoughts: Evolving PR Strategies for the Modern CIO  

The GDS Group CIO North America Summit 2024 underscored CIOs taking on more strategic roles in shaping business outcomes. For PR professionals, the lessons are clear: we need to adapt our approaches to align with how CIOs think, operate and innovate. By emphasizing partnership, leveraging data-driven storytelling and understanding the business impact of innovation, we can become trusted allies in the CIO’s journey.  

Moreover, with CIOs becoming the new front-runners in conversations around technology and business transformation, they need to be part of media discussions. PR teams have a pivotal role in amplifying these voices, ensuring that CIOs drive internal business decisions and lead public discourse on the future of business.  

This isn’t just about telling better stories—it’s about positioning clients as key players in the future of business transformation. As CIOs continue to take charge of innovation, PR professionals must be there to amplify their vision, articulate their strategy and demonstrate how they are driving real change across industries. 

With the NFL season underway, we’re set to see a continuation of where we left off last season – women in football shining just as bright as the athletes on the field. That expanded audience is not just tuning into games and learning what a touchback is, but is engaging with, and participating in, the spectacles that surround the games. From the pre-game fashion to the in-game viral moments, the sport has seen a transformation over the past year that’s also bringing new opportunities for brands to connect with a growing audience in new and meaningful ways.

We’ve already seen the largest above-the-line marketing campaigns go live to celebrate the start of the season, but the best is yet to come with both endemic and non-endemic brands alike vying for earned media attention, virality on TikTok and, of course, a coveted industry award or two. Here are a few trends we’re keeping an eye on while on the road to the Big Game this season, and how brands can connect with new fans in authentic ways:

Opportunistic Storytelling: The undertone to everything we’re watching this season will be the impactful use of quick-turn, creative-earned storytelling – brands capitalizing on a trending moment before it reaches virality and inserting themselves into the conversation. We saw this executed well last season when KidSuper immediately renamed the jacket Travis Kelce wore to “1989” an Easter egg for the Swifties, as Travis and Taylor confirmed they were dating. Another masterclass was the Heinz Ketchup and Seemingly Ranch execution, when Heinz quickly released a limited edition sauce after a fan account spotted Taylor Swift eating chicken tenders and “seemingly ranch” at a Chiefs game.

Takeaway: Earned-focused creatives can continue to help brands make immediate impacts – if brands are ready to capitalize when the moment presents itself.

Thinking Beyond the Tunnel Walk: First, we saw athletes turn a quick walk from their car to the locker room into a runway, spotlighting their own individualism via fashion. Then, we quickly saw brands take it over to launch new products and limited-edition merch, turning the photos into coveted social impressions with high-followed social accounts like BlitzFits, ProTrending and LeagueFits.

Takeaway: While the brand takeover of the tunnel walk will continue to grow in popularity, we’ll see more and more brands tapping into other football traditions – from the tailgate to the touchdown celebration.

Tapping New Talent: With a broader audience tuning into football on TV and across social, there’s an opportunity to expand brand partnerships beyond NFL (and college) athletes. Sure, Tom Brady will always drive clicks, but the women of the league – like Kristin Juszczyk, Claire Kittle and Olivia Culpo – can more authentically connect with the broadening audience that has football-adjacent interests.

Takeaway: If the start of the season is any indication, we’ll continue to see brands partner authentically with women in/around football to reach new audiences.

All Eyes on Flag: With Flag Football scheduled to make its debut at the 2028 summer games in Los Angeles, brands are well underway prepping for what’s slated to be the next big sport globally. While a healthy dialogue is already happening around whether NFL stars will be tapped for the 2028 summer roster, teams, leagues and brands are helping to grow the game’s visibility, from grants and equipment donations to working with Flag athletes like Diana Flores and Darrell Doucette.

Takeaway: Non-endemic sports brands should evaluate Flag Football as a strong potential avenue for authentic storytelling as the sport gains popularity rapidly in the U.S. and globally.

Wherever this season takes us, we know that more fans will be tuning in and ready to engage with brands that are creatively and authentically inserting themselves into the football cultural zeitgeist.

As a people leader, your relationships with team members and across your organization always are critical to fostering workplace culture, overcoming challenges, supporting employees and driving business continuity. More so during times of division.

And to do those things in what has been – and will continue to be – a disruptive 2024, you will benefit from not only taking a thoughtful and nuanced approach to sharing information but also listening.

As employees look to you for guidance, here are three recommendations to help ensure you harness the power of listening to navigate potential workplace division and maintain business continuity.

Also, check out our full guidance for people leaders, including actionable tips and real-life scenarios you may encounter, to help you effectively manage your teams throughout this divisive year.

#1: Sharpen Your Active Listening Skills

Right now, it’s essential that you work to understand what and how your team members are thinking and feeling by proactively checking in with them and asking what support they need.

Also, as a people leader, a worse offense than failing to check in with employees is failing to pay attention when you do, so be sure you show your people you care and are actively supporting them.  

#2: Be Prepared and Be Agile

While it’s important that you better understand how your team is thinking and feeling, it’s equally important you understand how to maintain control of conversations.

To help navigate difficult conversations, savvy communicators do the following:

Address the negative

Redirect the sensitive

Halt the inappropriate

While off-limits topics will depend on the organization’s policies, team culture, personal relationships and other factors, it’s generally safe to say people leaders should not engage in combative conversations about contentious political topics or allow those discussions to continue when observed.

#3: Look for the Best   

Being able to thoughtfully and appropriately respond to the situations described in our full guidance can drive business continuity and team cohesion throughout rocky periods. But you must not forget to also actively listen and search for opportunities to reinforce the things that are going well and the need for continued collaboration, respect and support among your team.

Most importantly, if you want to drive positive change among your team: walk the talk, lead by example and model the behaviors you want to see in others. View our guidance on how to best lead your team through a turbulent year, here.

FleishmanHillard’s Talent + Transformation team delivers business outcomes at the intersection of business and communications strategy. For more than three decades, we have helped industry-leading organizations align their employees behind their most essential business needs, including strategy, culture, transformation, and critical business and functional initiatives.

As the influencer marketing industry has more than doubled since 2019, influencer rates are increasing too, and new ways of monetizing influence continue to make it a lucrative business. While the influencer marketing industry is not immune to inflation, we must ask ourselves what value are we getting in return for higher rates? If demand is driving influencer rates up, is the investment proportionally driving higher business impact?

Here are three ways to determine an appropriate investment in influencer marketing. Start with data. Do the math. Incentivize performance.

1. Always start with the data

Utilize audience data and historical performance insights to evaluate the potential impact of an influencer partnership, rather than starting from vanity metrics or media kits.

There is no universal model for calculating influencer rates, which means rates shared in media kits are often based on what an influencer thinks a brand will pay. We know what one brand constitutes as value may differ to another. Therefore, there is no one-size-fits-all to sponsored rates.

What is most valuable to you? Is it the influencer’s reach or their audience’s propensity to hear your message? Is it the influencer’s likeness or their connection to their audience?

Think about your objective and evaluate potential impact based on universal KPIs. If your objective is consideration, utilize engagement rate and view-thru-rate KPIs to evaluate which influencers will provide the most value. Is their engagement rate above or below average? Do their Reel video views surpass their follow count? If an influencer exceeds your benchmarks, they will provide more value, which warrants a higher rate than those who do not. Conversely, if an influencer’s performance metrics are below benchmark, consider that when determining what rate is appropriate.

2) Do the math.

There is no single measure of impact. To fully assess the tangible return on your influencer investment, you must look at the full funnel and consider your objectives.

That means in addition to performance metrics like reach rate, view-thru-rate and engagement rate, evaluate impact by incorporating cost-pers (cost per thousand impressions, cost per video view and cost per engagement). When you pair performance metrics like engagement rate with impact metrics like cost-per-engagement it helps contextualize the campaign performance and tell a story that maps back to the business objective. Cost-pers help stakeholders understand the impact of influence within the full marketing mix.

However, influencer cost-per metrics shouldn’t be evaluated alone or compared directly to paid advertising cost-pers. The influencer’s reach is more valuable based on their trust and credibility with followers, so create unique influencer benchmarks rather than forcing their analysis against advertising cost-pers.

Beyond measuring campaign impact, these metrics are also helpful in identifying optimizations and opportunities to adjust your influencer marketing approach to drive impact effectively and efficiently.

3) Incentivize performance.

Don’t rely on sponsored rates alone to compensate your influencer partners. Affiliate marketing is a great way for brands to track and ensure ROI, while also ensuring influencer compensation is aligned with the business impact the influencer drives, not just their deliverables. However, affiliate is not the only answer.

Just as influencer rates are not one-size-fits-all, neither are compensation models. Each campaign and influencer partnership deserves a unique value exchange.

Paid Amplification Pay Out: Make compensation for paid usage rights dependent on content performance and use. In lieu of paying upfront for paid usage, wait until the content is live to determine if it should be leveraged in paid or not based on organic performance and content quality. Only if the content is utilized in paid will the influencer be paid the incremental usage fee.

Earned Media Pay Out: Similar to above, in lieu of paying the influencer upfront for name and likeness use, negotiate an incremental dollar amount the influencer will receive based on the number of interviews completed to support earned media.

Product Collaboration: When working with a brand ambassador on a product collaboration, ensure the compensation model is hybrid and partially dependent on the collaboration’s success. A partial amount of the influencer’s payment can be determined based on sales or conversion.

KPI Affiliate Model: Don’t limit affiliate to e-commerce. Consider using an affiliate model to pay influencers based on a range of KPIs including, but not limited to, website visitors, lead generation or other measurable actions.

The influencer landscape will continue to evolve, and rates will likely continue to increase. While industry growth provides more opportunities for brands and influencers alike, it also requires brands to be more intentional with their investments. Ensure your investment generates impact with audience-first, data-driven strategy and intelligence. Always start with data. Do the math. Incentivize performance.

In today’s fast-paced business environment, crises are no longer exceptional events but a constant reality that organizations must prepare to face. As a strategic communication expert with over 25 years of experience, I developed a comprehensive framework for crisis response alongside my colleagues at FleishmanHillard Korea: the 4 x 20 Strategy. This approach categorizes crises into four main types and offers 20 specific response strategies for each type.

Understanding the Four Types of Crises

Legal Responsibility: These situations likely involve the organization bearing legal responsibility for the incident in question, such as accidents caused by employee negligence, product defects or secondary incidents occurring while addressing the initial problem.

Moral Responsibility: Here, although there may not be legal responsibilities, there is a moral obligation to respond, influenced by cultural values or local business customs. This is particularly important in many Asian cultures, where the social responsibility of a business is highly valued.

Internal Mistakes: These crises stem from internal errors that do not necessarily lead to legal or moral responsibilities but can result in financial losses and damage to the organization’s reputation. Examples include failed investments, production delays due to mismanagement or loss of competitiveness due to outdated technology.

External Threat Crises: These situations arise where the organization bears no legal or moral responsibility and there are no significant internal mistakes. Examples include malicious rumors, fake news or unjustified regulatory actions that threaten the organization’s normal economic activities.

Key Principles of the 4 x 20 Strategy

Rapid Identification: The strategy provides a framework for quickly identifying the type of crisis, enabling quicker responses.

Stakeholder Perspective: Effective communication and engagement with relevant stakeholders are crucial, along with understanding multi-stakeholder dynamics.

Tailored Response: With 20 specific strategies for each crisis type, organizations can select the most appropriate response based on the specific situation.

Flexibility: The 4 x 20 Strategy is not a rigid set of rules but a flexible framework that can be adapted to various industries and organizational structures.

Proactive Preparation: While we cannot predict every crisis, we can always prepare in advance for various crisis scenarios. The 4 x 20 Strategy emphasizes the importance of having response plans ready for each crisis type.

Precision Communication: Data-driven precision communication can guide organizations more effectively, with the right timing and tone.

Continuous Learning: Each crisis provides an opportunity to refine and enhance the strategy. The 4 x 20 approach encourages post-crisis analysis and strategy updates, as needed.

Implementing the 4 x20 Strategy

Implementing the 4 x 20 Strategy requires a shift in how organizations view crisis management. Here are some key steps to take:

Crisis as a Constant: Recognize that crises are not isolated events but rather a regular aspect of business operations.

Cultural Shift: Cultivate a culture where every employee understands their role in crisis prevention and response.

Training and Simulation: Conduct regular crisis simulations based on the four crisis types to familiarize teams with the 20 response strategies.

Integration with Daily Operations: Incorporate crisis management principles into daily business activities rather than treating it as a separate function.

Leadership Commitment: Ensure that top leadership is committed to, and involved in, crisis preparedness and response.

The Future of Crisis Management: Integrating Enterprise Risk Management and the 4 x 20 Strategy

In today’s complex and interconnected business environment, the importance of effective crisis management is increasingly recognized. While Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) focuses on identifying and mitigating potential risks, the 4 x 20 strategy provides action plans for crises that have actually occurred.

By combining ERM’s preventive approach with the 4 x 20 strategy’s responsive approach, organizations can more effectively deal with crises across the board. This integrated approach allows organizations to prevent crises, respond quickly to those that do occur, and ultimately transform crises into opportunities.

For organizations facing new and evolving challenges in today’s fast-changing business environment, the combination of ERM and the 4 x 20 strategy can be an essential tool in building a resilient and future-oriented crisis management framework.

James Choi is a svp and partner at FleishmanHillard in Korea and wrote “The Principles of Crisis Response,” published in Korean on August 30, 2024.

“How’d the store visit go?” my CMO asked. I had a story for him.

Twenty years ago, when I worked at a national retailer, we were welcoming and introducing a new CEO to the company. I followed him on a store visit, shooting video and taking notes. We arrived at the top of an escalator where there was a large, skirted table with nothing on it. The CEO turned to the store manager and said, “Why do you have an empty table here? This is premium floor space.”

The manager quickly pulled out the merchandise floor map from the mess of papers he was carrying around and showed the CEO that the plan, from corporate, showed that table in that location with a specific featured product. The manager lamented that those specific items had not yet arrived, but they expected them from the distribution center in the next day or so.

The CEO was agape. “Can I please suggest that you put something on this table? Now. While you wait for those.”

This anecdote has always stuck with me because it captures a fundamental disconnect that can happen in retail corporate communications.

Getting Communications Right

Operations, customer experience and profit all converge on the retail sales floor. Selling is the result of a complex mixture of products, branding and interpersonal skills that come down to a store manager’s empowerment and entrepreneurial drive, perfectly balanced and blended with a sophisticated merchandising and marketing strategy for the brand overall.

That integration of factors, especially in a regional or national operation, requires highly effective leadership and communications throughout the company. In retail, leadership is communications and communications is leadership. They are one-in-the-same.

The pace is fast. The thinking and the action happens on your feet. And importantly, communications in the store environment is eye-to-eye. A successful communications strategy must have the managers and supervisors at the center of it to reach the associates on the sales floor who will execute the plans. That strategy has to do three critical things well:

1. Continually Educate Managers

A strong learning program for managers and supervisors should include both the mindset and skillset required for the business strategy. They don’t just execute communications, they own it, like they own their store P&L.

Sales associates need to be able to react and respond to a limitless range of scenarios and needs from customers, while embodying the brand. Their managers and supervisors are the coaches who will help them develop that talent. The managers set the culture and set performance expectations, and that requires a deliberate effort from the people in the store who lead others to skillfully observe and listen, assess and understand, and then explain and coach.

Equipping managers with easy-to-use teaching tools, like a simple and memorable three-step selling process, gives them the ability to coach in real time and develop their sales teams efficiently. As we all know, the best-designed, easiest tool still requires a competent operator to be fully effective. That’s why the learning program is so critical and why we recommend not just sharing learning materials with managers, but also creating time and space to understand the resources, practice using them and discuss their questions and ideas. And that education has to be sustained and evolved over time to meet the changing needs of the business and customers.

Selling and service skills are critical, and so is the ownership mindset that empowers team members to notice empty merchandise tables and do something about it. That mindset has to be cultivated with both communications campaigns and the in-person communications only managers can provide.

Beyond talent development, any communications about corporate priorities, values, culture campaigns and the brand narrative must be conveyed through the managers and supervisors. They are the biggest and most important communication channel you have, and a failure to invest in them will impact everything else you try to do.

2. Build Simple, Customizable Routines

Daily, weekly and monthly routines, like shift huddles and all-team meetings, are how stores work, and managers have to be skilled and well-equipped with information and messaging to put those routines to optimal use.

Talking points, data dashboards and recognition programs are foundational, but too many times the opportunity for creativity and storytelling is missed. Working in retail is fun. Customer interactions are an endless source of stories and anecdotes that are valuable for a sophisticated communications strategy and store managers who need to engage and align their teams. The routines provide a show-and-tell opportunity.

The information from corporate must be easy to digest and convey, and also easy to customize for the specific store. The format and context must be predictable and consistent, especially so that you can depart from it when needed for maximum impact in unique circumstances. Good routines make exceptions possible and effective, and give a skilled communications team the ability to break through when really needed.

In addition to the routines in stores, the corporate communications team needs routines of its own, which include regular and varied in-store experiences themselves. Central HQ teams that communicate with distributed workforces always benefit greatly from seeing and experiencing for themselves the lived reality of that workforce. I’m always surprised by how few teams take the time to do this when the advantages to be gained are so obviously great.

3. Use Systems for Information

When the more challenging communications work aimed at engaging and aligning your sales team across and within stores is handled by a skilled manager, that leaves your other channels free for the critical flow of information that people need on the floor to make the business hum. Supply chain and inventory data, product information, financial networks and now AI-generated target offers and customer data can run through your technology systems. The POS, tablets and phones are channels that should be optimized for data and information, and not cluttered with messaging.

Each retailer’s sales strategy is a little different, and these digital channels are vital in different ways, but it’s important to resist the compulsion to put everything through these digital channels just because they directly connect to the sales team members. Channel and content alignment, used strategically, is the best way to maintain the effectiveness of your communications ecosystem over time and across locations.

A Sales Force in Full Force

Applied to a retailer’s specific market environment and brand, the combination of skilled and prepared managers, effective routines and streamlined, focused information systems provides a powerful structure for reaching, engaging and aligning the sales force. The communications strategy is what holds it all together and ultimately makes the sale.

Newly introduced SEC reporting requirements now compel publicly traded companies to report “material” cybersecurity incidents within four business days and outline related details on risk management and strategy in their 10K filings.

These new requirements are just one of many indications that governments are taking more public action when it comes to protecting data. Companies are now beginning to understand that the evaluation of their preparation and response may have as much reputational impact as the data breach itself.

Adding to the complexity is the quickly evolving regulatory environment in the U.S. that is likely to see further changes and court challenges in the wake of recent Supreme Court decisions.

With this increased SEC scrutiny, companies now need to up their game and will have to consider:

Beyond whether they have a response plan or not. Today, the quality of that response plan is even more critical.

This escalates the need to modernize the approach to response plans –
from crisis planning to investor relations. As quickly as the threat landscape is evolving and organizations themselves change, clients will need to make sure their response plans have adapted as well.

How (or if) their plan was rehearsed and reinforced through employee training.

Immersive and effective table-top training sessions and simulations help
practice established plans. To further increase effectiveness, it’s important to
plan and execute creative and engaging employee training campaigns that
ladder to those plans and priorities as well.

Public disclosure requirements in response to a data breach can represent just the beginning of the reputational risk companies face due to government regulations or actions following a data breach:

Disclosing a breach that’s had a material impact on business can lead to
subsequent action by government entities – and already has in many cases.
Such actions include public investigations and legislative hearings, presenting far greater reputational risk than the initial disclosure.

As governments face more pressure to act against cybercriminals and protect the data of their citizens, they are also taking additional – and more public – steps to hold companies that are compromised by data breaches accountable.

It’s no secret or surprise that the attention of the world will turn to Paris this summer. The Games are one of the unique global sports properties that can not only galvanize fans from every corner of the world but also have brands (sponsors and non-sponsors alike) thinking and strategizing about ways to connect to the conversation surrounding the Games.

While every Games is different, understanding the complex landscape and thinking ahead to see around corners will give some brands a moment to stand above the rest when the world is watching.

As we countdown to Paris, here are eight key observations and opportunities for brands to keep an eye on — and take advantage of — leading up to, during and following the Games:

Paris Helps Revitalize Fan Interest in the Games: While the Games historically drive eyeballs and conversation, a few factors have blunted growth in recent years. Games in Sochi, Pyeongchang, Tokyo and Beijing brought time zone viewing challenges as well as criticism tied to human rights issues. COVID-19 threw a curveball into Tokyo and Beijing. The cost to host the Games has also made it more difficult for cities to justify submitting a bid. But Paris will become a major turning point in reinvigorating interest — from brands and fans —again. We’ll be reminded what a Games with fans in the stands can do to drive excitement and engagement. Brands are also looking at global fan excitement around Paris as a way to jumpstart and expand their businesses. Paris also starts a European swing of Games before landing in Los Angeles in 2028, so the time for brands to ride the wave starts in France this summer.

Female Athletes Will Shine Even Brighter on the World Stage: Women’s sports have experienced exponential growth, visibility and success over the last year. Of note, Paris is expected to reach a notable milestone with an equal number of female and male athletes competing for the first time in Olympic history. And according to Neilsen, while more men watch women’s college basketball and the WNBA than women do, female viewership has outpaced males over the past two Games. Paris will undoubtedly serve as a catalyst for even more conversation, exposure and brand partnership opportunities for thousands of female athletes. For brands that haven’t invested in women’s sports, the Games can also serve as a jumping off point to partner with rising female athletes once the Games are over to support and elevate their ongoing journey.

The Days of Your Mom and Dad’s Games Are Over: National governing bodies, media platforms and sponsor brands have always heavily protected the “voices” connected to the Games, meaning extra scrutiny was placed on celebrity, athlete and influencer partners appearing in marketing campaigns and activations. As the Games look to appeal to broader, more diverse and younger audiences, those stringent filters and criteria have softened. Ten years ago, you would not have seen Snoop Dogg or Alex Cooper on NBC’s talent roster or USA Water Polo embracing Flavor Flav as their official hype man. But the ability for culturally relevant entertainers and influencers to connect with new audiences will create more fans (and viewers) for the Games moving forward. We’ll also likely see sponsors tapping into celebrity and social influencer partners —– who might not have passed a traditional vetting process in the past — appearing in campaigns over the coming weeks.

AI Will Leave Us Wanting More: The Games have become a platform for brands, primarily official sponsors, to showcase new technologies and innovations on the world stage. Intel, a company known for microprocessors, famously flew 1,200 drones during the Pyeongchang 2018 Opening Ceremony that captured the world’s imagination and attention. NBC has already announced plans to use AI to recreate sportscaster Al Michael’s voice for daily recaps on Peacock. Other brand sponsors have also teased the use of AI to enhance the experience for on-site fans, athletes, organizers and viewers. While there will likely be some stumbling blocks in implementation and execution, AI will provide the general public a taste of what’s possible when it comes to sports consumption and engagement. And the brands at the forefront of communicating their technological contributions to the Games will become remembered.

A Brand is Waiting for their Real-Time Opportunity: Just like athletes spend years training for their one moment to shine on the world stage, brands are doing the same thing … they just might not know when or how their opportunity will come. When the Jamaican women’s bobsled team were left without a sled ahead of PyeongChang , Jamaican beer company Red Stripe stepped in to save the day and received positive reaction and global media coverage that far outweighed the cost of a new bobsled. Whether it’s the days leading into the Games or a moment that happens during the Games with an athlete, team or fan, a moment will undoubtedly present itself to a brand. The bigger questions are: Is it the right opportunity? Can they move fast? Does the situation authentically align with the brand? And can they bring tangible value to the moment? The brands that have already scenario planned around potential situations that might occur at the Games are already five steps ahead.

It’s Not Only About Podium Performances: Sure, high-profile athletes that win gold have tremendous value to partner brands. But the reality is that not every brand can align itself (nor afford) the biggest names in sport. Part of what makes the Games such an entertainment platform are the athletes’ stories of how they made it there. And as new sports are continually being introduced into the Games like surfing (Tokyo) and breaking (Paris), that provides even more opportunities for brands to align themselves with passionate fan bases and become part of the athlete’s story and journey … medal or no medal.

The Fashion Games: With the Games taking place in a city with such rich fashion heritage, fashion brands of all shapes and sizes will be connecting themselves with the Games and athletes in new ways. While clothing and apparel brands have always played a role in the Games, this year will likely be defined by the high-end and luxury brands that will use the Games to drive visibility and more importantly, sales. LVMH for example, created custom trunks that will transport medals and U.S. Gymnastics’ leotards will be covered in thousands of Swarovski crystals. Events like the Opening and Closing Ceremonies will become “see me” opportunities for athletes (and brands) to inject their own fashion sense when the world is watching. And celebrities, influencers and athletes not competing will use the Games to showcase their preferred fashion brands when attending competitions and events.

Not If, But When Will the Issues Occur: The Games are no stranger to issues. Every Games WILL have a variety of issues that could divert attention away from the athletes and on-field competition and bring official sponsors into the conversation. For Paris, that includes parliamentary elections, international wars, back-up plans for events in the Seine River, terrorism and cybersecurity, to name a few. However, with proper scenario planning to map out potential issues, executive and on-site training and real-time monitoring to identify emerging issues, brands can weather the storm and bring the attention back to the field of play.

Paris will become one of the more compelling Games in recent history and brands that have prepared appropriately but stay nimble in the moment will have the best opportunity to create brand marketing magic that resonates with their key audiences — positioning themselves to take home “gold.”

Steve Hickok is the global lead of FleishmanHillard’s Sports practice. He’s led global campaigns spanning nine Games for global and domestic sponsors including Visa, Samsung, Alibaba and Allianz.