Social Reporting

I thought I’d piggy-back Steve’s post on how annual reports are an indispensible communications tool, and should be approached and developed with this lesson in mind.

The same applies for social or sustainability reporting.  The GRI has gone as far as saying today that “sustainability reporting is becoming a more utilised tool in maintaining and building brand – often a company’s most valuable asset.”  This is on the back of reviewing the world’s top brands and how 43 of the top 100 global brands have issued such a report.

From a communications viewpoint, compiling a sustainability report itself not only offers an opportunity to engage a group of stakeholders during the process but it’s also an opportunity to reach out to a wide range of stakeholders.  But if — and it’s a big if — it’s communicated effectively.  

Simple things like publishing a smaller/summarised version for ‘less technical’ audiences, and producing a user-friendly and accessible report that it is easy to find on the website are simple steps that any company thinking about producing one must consider.  There’s a huge time investment necessary to put together a social report, and businesses should try and get as much value out of them as possible. 

I searched one Korean company who produces a GRI accredited report but it can only be accessed through the IR site.  This is good for investors, but the company is missing out on a great opportunity to showcase their social responsibility (and build their brand) with a range of stakeholders who would rarely visit the IR site.

Going through the process of developing a social report is something Korean companies are beginning to (and should) turn their attention to.  Korean companies have a bit of catching up to do, however.  The last time I trawled through the database, of the 2,173 sustainability and environmental reports meeting the GRI standards, only 37 were from Korean companies (two of these were overseas companies based in Korea also).  That compared with, for example, 269 from Japan, 230 from the U.S., 138 from Australia, 78 from Germany and 74 from Finland.

Parsimony, Social Media and Drifting Porsches

Disclaimer: Hankook Tire is a client of Edelman in Seoul. However, that does not detract from the fact that this is a very cool piece of film!

What is interesting about this is that this is one of the comparatively few cases of a Korean company using international social media channels to promote the things it’s doing. There’s a lot of stuff happening in the online space in Korea – particularly on the Cyworld and Naver communities but, short of posting ads, I don’t see very much content on YouTube.

This particular piece of film was shot in July during a test for a drifting Porsche and later posted up onto YouTube, primarily to interest the drifting community. As can be seen from the comments, it has certainly reached its target audience and consequently raised the profile of brand. It’s a great example of how an item of content not necessarily created for promotional use can nevertheless be used to provide more context on what a company is doing behind the scenes.

Good communications is parsimonious in that it generates the maximum amount of use from resources at the lowest possible cost. Taking materials developed for internal use and review and using them for external communications via platforms such as YouTube is a great example of parsimony. Assuming, of course, that you don’t divulge trade secrets, the list of possible applications is almost endless – concept products, pop group rehearsals, product stress tests, trade show events – almost anything that is used for internal reporting purposes can be adapted for dissemination to an interested target audience. Think of the “bonus features” on the average movie DVD and the extent to which people – myself included- will watch footage of the production process shot on a hand-held video camera as a part of the whole movie experience.

Consumers and other stakeholders increasingly want to see the story behind the brand. The glitz and polish of classical advertising is giving way to grainy, home-made content that can be viewed online and shared between fellow enthusiasts. Korean companies typically spend enormous amounts of money on advertising to build brand awareness. Taking a parsimonious approach to communications has the potential to build awareness among important stakeholder groups without the heavy upfront expenditure required of a traditional advertising campaign.

And, if you’re interested, here are a couple more drifting Porsche videos. After all, there’s nothing wrong with shameless client promotion!

(Love the soundtrack on this one!)