Big stars of the small screen

Best motion picture
Winner

Two years ago, Pfizer began combining its financial and sustainability reports and in 2011 produced its first true integrated report. For 2012 the pharmaceuticals company did away with print entirely and poured all its efforts into its online annual report, produced by New York’s Ideas on Purpose. The video is stunning in both quality and range, from views under the microscope to patient stories and executive interviews.  

Runner-up

GE first earns kudos for the wow factor of its annual report website, which comes alive as you scroll down it. Dig deeper and you get to some great videos, including this year’s edition of CEO Jeff Immelt’s musings, ‘Jeff’s thoughts on GE’, and a (not surprisingly) sweeping overview of this giant company in ‘See how GE works’.  

Best cinematography
Canada’s Agnico-Eagle Mines manages to shoot, edit and post a video of CEO Sean Boyd on earnings day every quarter. Serious points for effort and efficiency. Two factors detract from Boyd’s message, however: not only does this normally charismatic CEO come across as woodenly scripted, but the production team seems to like strange angles, artsy focus effects and lots of edits, resulting in nouvelle vague CEO videos.

Best documentary

Most of ARC Resources’ operations are in Canada’s far north so to show investors what’s going on, ARC documents the building of each of its natural gas plants, posting updates for each phase of planning and construction.

Best daytime talk show

More and more companies are producing some kind of CFO and/or CEO commentary soon after quarterly earnings, but no one does it like Dell. Rob Williams, vice president of IR, acts as a kind of talk-show host, typically interviewing chief financial officer Brian Gladden and one other senior executive with engaging candor. The resulting video gets posted on DellShares, the computer company’s IR blog, along with a SlideShare presentation and even a transcript. The best quarterly commentary out there.

Best lead actor

The best thing about Cameco CEO Tim Gitzel’s ‘CEO corner’ is that he doesn’t seem to be acting. Each quarter he gives bite-sized one to two-minute answers to topical questions, and the indexed videos are posted in the IR section of the Canadian mining and energy company’s website.

Best action series

Plastered over everything from racing cars to racing boats, the Audi brand evokes excitement, translated brilliantly into a video-based annual report tailored to iPhones, iPads or the web. Select the 360-degree option to pan across an array of video choices and feel the rush.

Best investor day captured on video

Intel’s annual investor day gets video treatment worthy of prime time, and the Silicon Valley giant makes the most of it, keeping the indexed video and accompanying presentations front and center on its IR site for the rest of the year.

Best animation

Tesco’s latest online annual report underlines the UK supermarket group’s overseas expansion, with the latest online version, created by MerchantCantos, available in six languages. But the pièce de résistance is the ‘Tesco around the world’ video, with animated maps and other infographics.

Best soundtrack
Stanley Black & Decker has been fine-tuning its video-based annual review for the past three years. ‘Listen to the world around you,’ begins the narration for the brand video that introduces this year’s version, with the sounds of tools and security equipment creating a rhythmic backdrop for a stirring message.

Best employee performance

American Campus Communities’ online annual report, produced by Curran & Connors, features great infographics that work as well on iPhones and iPads as they do on the web. And a fun video shows employees holding up placards showing the animated infographics.

Best locations

Britain’s Tullow Oil, whose operations are in Ghana, has previously produced stunning videos to show investors its business without them having to travel. One of its latest efforts, beautifully produced by CTN, supported the launch of a new business initiative called Invest in Africa.