
On September 15, 2016, Prof. emeritus Olaf Leu gave the keynote speech in Zurich on the occasion of the »Swiss Annual Report Rating 2016« award ceremony. The lecture is entitled: »Quality – The Assessment of Goodness«. Here is the speech by the old master of corporate communications verbatim:
Ultimately, we, the organizer of this awards night and I as the author of this keynote, quickly agreed on the topic of quality, although I already suspected what a minefield I would be treading on. After all, the following is about nothing less (but also nothing more) than the quality of visuals, especially that of annual reports.
But before I get to the actual topic of my lecture, I have to ask the basic question: What is quality anyway?
Quality comes from Latin (qualitas) and means quality. If you look in business dictionaries, quality is about the conformity of services with requirements. Customers, users, consumers/producers, retailers and manufacturers make requirements. The decisive factor is what the claimants perceive and consider important in the context of their requirements. While the rationally determined material quality can be measured using scientific and technical methods, the reproducible measurement of the quality of appearance causes problems. And now we're at the heart of the matter.
The term quality can be interpreted subjectively (subjective quality) and objectively (objective quality). And that's why it is used in different contexts and contexts. On the one hand subjective, that is, judgmental in the sense of good or bad, and on the other objective, that is, value-free in the sense of quality. Quality here means the totality of all characteristics contained in a product, process or procedure.
Therefore, a distinction must be made between execution quality and concept quality. And both are also combined in the product annual report.
Ladies and gentlemen, ask yourselves what you understand by quality! You will notice that in everyday language we quickly use the term quality to mean »valuable«. We talk about good and bad quality and by that we mean that a product or service is of high or low quality, good or bad. The term quality has long since become a synonym for goodness in everyday language.
Last but not least, German and Swiss products were advertised internationally with the slogan »Quality made in Germany« or »Made in Switzerland« and gained recognition worldwide. They were obviously good products, also of high quality. Or they were considered to be so and thus met the expectations and requirements that customers had of a product.
No question, product designers have it a little easier because when determining product quality, you can relatively quickly come to an agreement on quality criteria such as material quality (durability), manageability (safety) and practicality (functionality). In the visual, aesthetic area, things are much more difficult.
Nevertheless: good, even outstanding design – whether product or communication design – is ultimately always noticeable in the interaction between the designed product and its user or reader or viewer: does something work, does it have an aesthetically distinctive form and presentation, am I interested in what I see, is the font easy to read, is the language understandable, etc. In short: Good design, that is, high quality moves, conveys the so-called good feeling and often the must-have that is much praised by marketing people and considered desirable.
That is why I pose the question: Is beauty a criterion for the quality of a product? What determines the quality of a book? What determines the quality of a company report? This is something that is worth arguing about. Because what is beautiful and good for one person is not necessarily so for another. Whether you judge a product, a service, a process as good or bad depends on many different factors: experiences, expectations, requirements, knowledge, values and more.
But if quality is subjective – how can you arrive at quality standards and norms? The answer: You also have to make quality measurable. This can be achieved by using the second meaning of quality – quality as a quality – as a basis. And by determining, determining and setting goals and requirements in advance according to a variety of criteria. These criteria always require one thing: the experiences gained, the recall of models, of what has already been seen, the visual memory. Without experience, there is no judgment!
Quality then means the extent to which a product, a process technology, a service, an organization or a company as a whole meets the previously defined and documented criteria and requirements.
For several years, a knowledgeable grand jury, as I explicitly call it, has been judging according to precisely such criteria, which have been precisely developed and applied to evaluate the 100 best. Well staffed, it looks at the quality of all the properties of the business report object – content, visual, analogue and digital.
These criteria are comparable to a power rail that you cannot leave, otherwise the movement will die out: without juice, there is no power.
They are intended to be represented and applied very independently and very decisively by each active jury member. Precision, discipline and experience help to ensure security in the evaluation. The exemplary documentation that follows contributes to the transparency and openness of the competition.
It would now be interesting to note the following:
To what extent does the result of this assessment of quality affect you, ladies and gentlemen from the companies represented here, for the annual report you represent? Does it have a lasting influence on your actions? Do you attribute success in a competition to a competent jury, but a poor to mediocre placement to a more or less incompetent jury? Many should ask themselves why they have always been placed in the last fifty for years.
For several years – almost secretly, quietly and unnoticed – A lucrative business model developed around so-called awards, in which awards in all metal grades, including the title Agency of the Year, are given out – of course only for a hefty fee. Behind this are organizers who had previously been serious about their association work, but suddenly discovered a cow to milk. A GmbH, an AG, an Incorporated were quickly founded.
What is missing from the announcements for these paid competitions are the names of the jury members – a very significant shortcoming, in my opinion, because only if I know who is judging here can I roughly assess the quality of the assessment. Nevertheless, the term prestigious is used just as inflationary as the title Oscar of the industry.
This type of award is just one thing: a big bluff. The intention is to encourage those responsible for communications in companies to work with external parties who have apparently won great awards. But when you look at it closely, these Oscar fakes are only partially meaningful. And they often do not deserve what they claim: a seal of quality, a seal of approval.
Every competition result depends on the quality and number of entries. However, these vary greatly in paid competitions, especially in the corporate reports segment. In no case is a complete overview guaranteed in any of these competitions – but certainly in the case of the 100 Best in Switzerland or manager magazine in Germany. And that even without any contribution to costs, but certainly with presentable documentation and an event like this evening.
In this respect, I have great respect for the 100 Best competition, combined with admiration for the implementation and the openness through the disclosure of comprehensible criteria. I find out who was on the jury here, and I can take the printed result home with me, including the ranking and comments. Respect, respect!
I must admit, however, that in Germany we were very close to this Swiss benchmark from 1996 to 2011, but have since strayed far from the course, and for reasons that are incomprehensible.
Based on my many years of experience as a jury member in many different competitions, I can therefore say with complete conviction: If there is a competition, a ranking, then The 100 Best is the model. Its results should wake people up, confirm or call into question previous partnerships with external parties and in many cases bring about a reversal. So it's your turn, ladies and gentlemen in the companies!
Because you enjoy the privilege of the birth and creation process of a business report, you have it in your hands – you start, master and finish the game. All I can say is: make something of it!
Because the implementation of communicative statements represents a truly enormous complex for your company, which a successor in the spirit of the legendary marketing mastermind Hans Domizlaff put into meaningful, complex sentences:
»Corporate Identity
is the strategically planned
and operationally implemented
self-presentation and behavior
of a company
internally and externally
based on a defined corporate philosophy,
a long-term corporate objective
and a defined target image –
with the intention to present all the company's instruments of action within a uniform framework, both internally and externally.«
I know that sounds very complicated at first. But it includes exactly the communicative task that you have to fulfill. Admittedly – there are endless obstacles to this, especially in today's predominantly digital age.
But one thing must be clear to you: When designing your annual report, you use external creatives that you (supposedly) choose consciously, often according to incomprehensible criteria. Either you let yourself be blinded by the far-fetched titles of the Oscar fakes, or you organize a pitch, one of those unfortunate Miss Beauty contests in which the people invited, even from the perspective of the competitors, can never and never want to compete with their visors open. Success here is all too often like winning a game of blind man's buff.
My Swiss colleague Peter Vetter comments on this:
»If an external party can contribute to a company's identity at all, then only in 5 phases that must be precisely worked out and very consistently adhered to:
Analysis
Hypothesis
Synthesis
Implementation
Ongoing processing.«
This methodical thinking is what is required – not the amount of the fee. After all, the intellectual and creative potential of an external party is a valuable asset and does not have the negotiable value of 5 kg of nails. That is why the purchasing department is not the right person to talk to here!
It's about the relationship between contractor and client if something is to turn out well. This relationship must be based on an initially growing and ultimately increased appreciation of the other party if the added value of the communication is to be secured in the long term. All of this cannot be achieved in a pitch that is non-binding for all parties and usually ends with the request to submit your fee expectations by letter or email. The answer you often get is: you're too expensive!
Ladies and gentlemen from the companies, yes, you have become suspicious, made suspicious by the offers that arrive daily, weekly, monthly. They all promise you the big breakthrough to the 25 best, because they were all the Oscars of the industry. So join in, why are you still hesitating? Next year you will be walking the red carpet at the event night ...
Times have become tougher. Mutual distrust, the loss of ethical and moral values has increased, and people's interactions with one another are becoming more distant, impersonal and non-binding. People only trust their counterparts to a limited extent. This in turn leads to a result that is carried out with little commitment, ultimately that of your annual report.
The arguments of external parties, which were initially correct, go unheard or are watered down. What my Swiss colleague Peter Vetter calls for with his five phases requires a time and financial investment - and this is only justified if both parties, the company and the external party, are sure of their cause.
Be sure of your cause. That is the big hurdle – and it is primarily the company itself that poses it. Because many briefings are imprecise from the start, lack originality and are stuck in platitudes. Ultimately, it's just about making things look better or trying to align them with the competition.
The core, the identity, the uniqueness of the company remain, even for external parties, only vague, in a me-too manner. This is also a reason why the visual results are often no longer distinguishable from one another. This is also a reason why you always end up at the bottom of the rankings.
Our Swiss colleague, Ruedi Baur, rightly notes:
»The big problem for creative people today is that they can no longer work with the main people in companies, but with people who are uncertain, don’t really have to make decisions, make compromises, and are tempted to cling to experiences that may cause them the least problems. We creative people must be able to discuss things at the highest level again. That doesn’t mean abolishing departments and responsibilities, but it does mean gaining access to the essential and decisive points in companies in order to have a direct dialogue.«
This is how Peter Vetter’s five phases and Ruedi Baur’s statement complement each other.
The 100 Best also includes judging the internet presence, which is increasingly in focus today. The discussion about which communicative statement should be moved to where, analogue or digital, is currently reminiscent of medieval religious battles.
There are the proponents of digital who say: Nobody reads printed annual reports with over 250 pages, and if they do, then only a tiny circle of diehards. Let's stop this elaborate paper tome, we'll only go online.
The proponents of analogue, on the other hand, say: The printed annual report represents the company in public. It provides information about the company's purpose and meaning. This conglomerate of information in verbal and visual form ultimately results in a reasonable, clear and informative summary.
There are now solutions that take both perspectives into account, which on the one hand occupy the digital and at the same time retain the analogue, the printed word and image, albeit with reduced print runs. In a sense, a kind of bartering of communicative concerns takes place.
The crucial question, however, is and remains: Can the visual actually promote content? Yes, it can!
»Our perception of corporate communications in general and corporate reports in particular is both emotional and cognitive. An emotional reaction does not necessarily exclude an intellectual understanding. Rather, feelings and the need for meaning seem to be mutually dependent in many ways: Anyone who is not addressed or gripped by a publication is likely to show little interest in the meaning of what is written. On the other hand, if the medium has a strong effect on the reader, they will be more inclined to engage with the content.«
I took this passage from a recently published paperback, which was the first experiment to redesign a dull annual report with the same content and thus visually demonstrate the possibilities for improvement. Both objects were then presented to analysts for evaluation! The result seems astonishing, but I expected it: The redesigned annual report won by a class over its dull competitor. That's the proof!
And with that, I bring you my gift: Visually reporting, published by Springer/Gabler (ISBN 978-3-658-14137-0)
Before you plan or commission an annual report, be aware of the content! Only when the content is determined should you act, in the spirit of a quality standard in the visual.
Content criteria in the annual report can be strictly observed and reliably assessed using a consistently observed criteria query. Are these and those criteria observed, present, yes or no.
In the area of design, this is much more difficult, although, in contrast to the content, there are very much technical criteria here. They form the basis of the evaluation, so to speak:
▪ Is the font suitable for reading long stretches without tiring the eye?
▪ Is a page, usually a double page, easy to read with the eye or do my eyes have to move up and down ten times in three columns, like in a paternoster?
Incidentally, this was seen in this year's 3rd overall winner, which also uses a grotesque that is difficult to read anyway. Oh, God, Jan Tschichold, also highly revered in Switzerland, would turn in his grave at the staccato-like word structures that a grotesque creates.
Even long reading sections with 300 pages full of characters can always be written in a legible, fatigue-free font. But grotesque fonts are simply not one of them – in this context I would like to refer to the old master Tschichold and the living Jost Hochuli.
For the overall winner No. 1, almost the right long reading font was chosen, but the set is not expanded. The small caps that provide calm are missing, especially in complicated lines with terms such as CHF, US GAAP, EBITA, which can only be written in capital letters. Font families and clans that do not contain balance sheet figures or small caps are unsuitable for business reports, or at least should be viewed as borderline.
The overall winner No. 1 is a compromise between the content jury and the design jury – although everything has been taken into account in terms of content, the report is rather complicated for the stakeholder and therefore only partially easy to read. But it is the understandable favorite of the content. My respect!
Respect also for the overall winner No. 2. This result is truly dedicated to the simple reader, who does not have to wade through dozens of infographics. Here, the content and intention of the company were conveyed to the reader in a very communicative, almost charming and very accommodating way. Great respect!
I ask you to forgive me as a guest for this interference in the result. But ultimately, I was a jury member for over eleven years in this competition, which was called The Best Balance Sheet at the very beginning and is now called The 100 Best. That's why I can't quite let it go.
I end my contribution with a clear commitment to the analogue, which is also due to my advanced age. Not that I completely reject the digital – no, this medium also offers special design possibilities, its own potential.
But when it comes to business reports – and not only then – I (also) want to hold something in my hand, I want to experience something haptically, feel something. Life is analogue. Relationships are analogue. Empathy, love, hate, anger, pity and joy are analogue.
And always remember: you only get help in trivial cases on the internet. When push comes to shove, you need real people. Who are there. Who do something with you.
For the advancement and prosperity of the 100 best in the future, I would like to give you a quote from Luis Buñuel:
»Science ignores dreams, chance, laughter, feelings.«
The new book by Olaf Leu »R80« has been published by Spielbein Publishers (please click here).
Photography: Eibes, Jäggi