Janet Dodd, Chief Strategy Officer at Identity, argues that the pavilions which endure in the memory are built on strategic foundations laid before a single design decision is made, and that for Expo 2027 Belgrade and beyond, sequencing is everything.
A national pavilion at a World Expo is unlike almost any other communications challenge a country, city or organisation will face. You have a physical space, a defined period, a captive international audience, and one shot at shaping how the world sees you. The strategic question is not “what should our pavilion look like?” It is “what do we want people to believe, feel and do as a result of having been here?”
That distinction matters more than most pavilion briefs acknowledge.
Beautiful containers for stories nobody agreed on
The pavilions that endure, the ones that generate coverage, drive repeat visits, shift perceptions and create genuine legacy, are built on a clear strategic foundation. They know what story they are telling, who they are telling it to, and they have built every design, content and experience decision around serving that narrative.
The ones that underperform are rarely underfunded. They are under-strategised. The physical environment becomes a beautiful container for a story nobody quite agreed on. I have seen this pattern across large-scale international event environments. It is not a failure of talent or effort. It is a sequencing problem.
Three questions that change everything
Strategy has to come first. Before the architectural brief. Before the content commission. Before the visitor journey is mapped. Three questions need clear answers: What is the one thing you want your audience to know that they do not know now? What is the one thing you want them to feel? And what do you want them to do, whether that is investment, tourism, trade, diplomatic goodwill, or a shift in perception, as a result of the experience?
Those three questions, answered with precision, become the filter for every decision that follows.
Legacy is not a reporting obligation, it is a design principle
For Expo 2027 Belgrade, the strategic opportunity is significant. Serbia has a story to tell on the international stage, about innovation, culture, resilience and ambition. A World Expo is a rare platform to tell that story at scale, to an audience that is genuinely there to listen.
But legacy here means two distinct things, and conflating them is a strategic mistake. The first is the legacy of the pavilion itself: what does your physical presence achieve during the expo? What perceptions does it shift, what relationships does it open, what commercial or diplomatic outcomes does it accelerate? The second is the legacy of the expo for the host nation: how does Belgrade and Serbia benefit from having staged this event, beyond the closing ceremony? Both matter. Both require deliberate design. And the strategy that serves one does not automatically serve the other.
That is why legacy objectives have to be defined before the experience is designed, not retrofitted afterwards. The most effective pavilions we have worked on were built with both dimensions of legacy in mind from day one. That sequencing changes everything.
Your presence is physical and virtual; design for both
The expo footprint no longer ends at the pavilion door. Digital participation has become a core part of how nations and organisations extend their reach, to audiences who will never set foot on site but who are no less valuable. A hybrid content strategy, a strong event app presence, virtual engagement programming and a coherent digital narrative running in parallel to the physical experience can multiply the impact of your pavilion many times over. Strategy has to account for both. The story you tell inside the pavilion and the story you tell online need to be the same story, told fluently in both registers.
The pavilion is the expression. The strategy is the foundation
At Identity, our strategic approach to expo work starts with the outcome, works backwards through the experience, and tests every element against the original intention. When EPG brings its operational depth alongside our strategic and creative capability, the result is a brief that is coherent end-to-end, from the first visitor touchpoint to the final day of the programme.
The organisations that make the most of a World Expo treat it as a strategic platform, not a construction project. Get the foundation right, and everything built on top of it will last.
