Critique of public relations reports

Business Communication

The Internet has enhanced communication in myriad ways. Now people throughout the world can tap into information and communicate with people, which even a decade ago would have been impossible. Whereas shareholders once needed to wait for print annual reports to arrive through traditional snail mail, these publications are now readily available for downloading on the organization's Web site. Unfortunately, many companies have decided not to leverage the other benefits of the Web when publishing their annual reports. In the past, the annual reports were designed to integrate into the business' brand and make reading interesting and informative with graphics, type face fonts and photographs. Many organizations now only upload the text in a PDF format without all the visuals and typeface design elements. Although the financial numbers are easily accessible as is mandated by law, the layout is grey and boring without an interesting cover message and inside pages, text and graphic callouts, boldface lead-ins, action-oriented subheads, bullets, and other graphics. They have no "design."

There are some companies, however, who have made the transition and are making their annual reports graphic if not interactive. For example, the Bank of America's 2009 annual report starts with a very simple letter on the cover stating:

December 31, 2009 Bank of America

100 North Tryon Street

Dear Bank of America,

I have a stake in this company too.

What are you doing to move the bank and the economy forward?

Despite the fact that the punctuation is wrong on the greeting (a comma instead of a colon), this is a good way to grab the reader's attention and show Bank of America in a good light: The management understands that the stakeholders are concerned about the economic situation.

This lead in is followed by a colorful graphic page with different questions from stakeholders in red, blue or grey and varying sized fonts, such as: "I'm in over my head with my mortgage. How can you help?" And "Is now a good time for me to invest in emerging markets?" For example. Once again, this is to show that Bank America is paying attention to its customers. This leads into the third page: Bright red with large white letters saying, "We're listening. We know your financial needs are changing. That's why we're changing too..."

The next several pages consist of the CEO's letter, which explains how, despite the difficult economic times, Bank America continues to find ways to remain stable and help its customers and communities grow. It is a typical PR piece, making the not so good look not so bad. There is no mention, of course, about the impact that the economic times have had on the bank that impact the customers, such as higher service charges and greatly increased interest rates on credit cards.

The annual report makes good use of typography. Instead of photographs, in many cases the designer uses type to make its message. For example, in big white letters on a full bleed red page, the section reads: "How are we making banking better?" This is followed by the next page, again with large gray letters on a stark white background saying, "By being clear and easy to understand." These large letters with very few words work very well to get the message of clarity and ease of understanding across to the readers in a different way than just writing about it. The design shows it rather than tells it.

The next several pages of the report continue in this fashion, with a major headline about the topic to be covered, for example "by making every good loan we can," and then a page of text to cover the topic. In addition, since there are scrolled pages instead of pages in a book, the annual report breaks up the copy with full-page photographs that fit with the topic. The financial information is much blander, with straight copy and columns of numbers. It would have been helpful for the designer to continue using graphics to break up the areas and graphs and charts to show the information in a different way. Similarly, at the end when it lists the board members, it would have been graphic and helpful to show pictures of each person. There is a group shot, instead of individual photos. Also, they do not have a bio of each person.