Eric Giuily, president and chief executive officer of Publicis Consultants Worldwide

Eric Giuily, president and chief executive officer of Publicis Consultants Worldwide
Expo 2010 will attract massive attention across the planet
World Expo 2010 has two most attractive points. The first one lies in its host city: Shanghai. There are huge interests, especially in Europe and the US, in China, Shanghai and their developments. When we were in charge of the China - France Cultural Years project from 2004 to 2006, we could only acknowledge the huge interest and coverage that Shanghai and China received from world media.
The second point is the theme of the Expo, "Better City, Better Life." It is a very important and interesting topic for most countries. Many countries are assessing and working on how to improve individual lives in cities.
In the context of the economic crisis, this theme is even more relevant as people might be putting less importance and interests on their financial lives, but more on the cities, their collective lives and daily lives.
For Shanghai Expo, Publicis Consultants was for example in charge of the press relations for Shanghai Expo during the Expo promotion in Zaragoza last September. We were also proud to have helped Shanghai for its bidding for the World Expo 2010 in Paris as early as 2001. We helped Shanghai to prepare its presentation and felt proud for the city’s success.
To be frank, up to now, the Expo 2010 may not be on top of the agenda of the world media, as the Olympic Games in Beijing last August did attract a lot of attention, and after the Olympics came the economic crisis. But I am positive that with the 2010 event coming closer, there will be greater and rising interests from foreign media. They will be quite interested in the theme of the Expo and how China and Shanghai will be able to develop such a huge project.