AS CORPORATE reporting moves increasingly to the web, annual report designers are learning that it’s incredibly difficult to create attention-grabbing online communications.
We often see their feeble attempts in the form of online annual report splash pages, covers or homepages. If you’re lucky there’s some dancing text and flashing video, but most often even these attempts to engage fall flat.
The exceptions are few and far between. There was Westpac’s tomato throwing animation in 2001 (still makes me smile), and PepsiCo’s “eat, drink and be merry” opener in 2000, which is still online if you’re interested.
Now there’s Wienerberger AG, the big Austrian brick maker, professing that it doesn’t give a damn about its 2007 annual report. The company explains why in a section of the report called “Investmentstory.”
And it isn’t lost on me that it takes a company with such a boring product to be the most creative company we’ve seen all year.
Go see for yourself (tip: let the page drive itself)
Update, April 15: I’ve heard from a couple of people who say the screens transition too fast and they cannot read the text on each screen. I agree now that I’ve tested it on a computer with a smaller screen. Goes to show how difficult it is to do these things in a way that works for everyone.
Dominic (bio & disclosures) is IR Web Report‘s founder and an online investor relations consultant. He advises leading public companies and investor relations service providers worldwide on using the web for disclosure, engagement and profile building. You can contact him via the contacts page.
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