Now everyone can know Moldova (and anywhere): a digital strategy makes the future, now
Small steps – big impacts
Landlocked Moldova lies in eastern Europe, Romania to the west, Ukraine to the east.
It makes for a classic example of a small-state NOC. Its entire annual budget runs to roughly USD 1 million, Secretary General Cristina Vasilianov said.
In 2024, with budgets tight, digital communication offers a window of opportunity to break out. A small opportunity can perhaps bring a bigger return.
“No one knows Moldova,” Vasilianov said. “If you ask the IOC members or my international colleagues if they have been here – no one.”
The neighbouring conflict that broke out in 2022 inevitably affected Moldova, on the border with Ukraine. An influx of refugees complicated matters. Moldova is typically described as having one of the lowest GDPs per capita in Europe.
For the NOC, as for most NOCs worldwide, seeking funds from Olympic Solidarity was essential. The NOC of Moldova has only 13 full-time staff members. “You have to be photographer, cleaner, driver – having a small number of staff I am totally involved in all processes,” Vasilianov, a former fencer who has been Secretary General of her NOC for 15 years, said.
With so many things to do, so few hands to do it – why commit time and resources, and what kinds of resources, to a strategy heavy on digitalisation and, moreover, outward-facing communication? Why invest? What to expect? What benefits might there be?
Turns out Moldova offers a classic answer – one that perhaps can serve as an example worldwide.
Olympic Solidarity sponsored a regional seminar on digital communication and media, first organised in 2019 by the NOC of Azerbaijan, then twice more, including in Lausanne in December 2023, a session that drew 17 NOCs from three continents and expertise in the field brought by ANOC and the IOC digital team.
This unique initiative allowed NOCs to share knowledge and best practices, presenting on athletes as storytellers; AI solutions for productivity, data analysis and content; Olympic Games digital challenges from an IF perspective; and lessons learned from the 2023 European Games in Poland, the European Youth Olympic Festival in Slovenia and the Asian Games in China. Additionally, the Azerbaijan NOC also explained how sponsor-oriented social media content creation could drive change.
In Moldova, meanwhile, Vasilianov had already secured funding from Olympic Solidarity, via the NOC Exchanges programme, and technical advice from the NOC Institutional Relations and IOC Television and Marketing Services teams.
A first project brought internal accounting into the digital age. “We jumped,” she said, “from the 19th to the 21st century.”
Then a re-do of the NOC logo – “Team Moldova” – and a campaign, an entire new visual identity, focused on every athlete. The result? The NOC already signed a new sponsor, a bank, with eyes on more.
“I cannot say this is because of the new logo, we had a relationship,” Vasilianov says, then stopped and corrected herself: “But – why not? This is also because of the new logo, all this campaigning and attention. I would say, yes, this logo works.”
She added, “Moldova starts to be visible. Before, we were invisible. This is about digitalisation.
“The more digital we are,” she said, smiling, “the more time we will have.”
Of course, she said, the ambition is to add yet more new sponsors: “We have quite a lot of plans. When we speak of digitalisation there is no limit.”