August 31, 2016 | less than a minute read

Content as Soft Power: the Olympics

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Tom Elgar

Co-founder

Get in touch

Tom Elgar

Co-founder

The Chinese famously, and successfully, targeted the Olympics as a Soft Power opportunity. The British have done the same since 1996, again successfully. If you analyse the motives (see below) they are strikingly similar to those of a good Content Strategy.

One aspect that is not often mentioned is how soft power, or a good content strategy, can also make those inside the tent feel like there are on the winning team, and behave as such. As such it is a superb management technique.

Soft power shuns the traditional foreign policy tools of carrot and stick, seeking instead to achieve influence by building networks, communicating compelling narratives, establishing international rules, and drawing on the resources that make a country naturally attractive to the world. In short, “hard power is push; soft power is pull”