Winner: SC Johnson
Report: SC Johnson 2002 Public Report
Budget: Overall budget was $65,000, with $6,000 for design, $32,000 for production, $18,000 for printing, $5,500 for CD replication and $3,500 for CD conversion to the Web
page.
As a family-owned private company, SC Johnson is under no obligation to publish an annual report. But the company, known for its household brands like Ziploc and Windex, has a
long history of understanding the need to communicate with all of its stakeholders - regardless of whether they're stockholders: As early as 1927 H.F. Johnson Sr. said, "A
business ... is built of human opinions, which may be made to live forever."
The 2001 Public Report takes H.F.'s PR savvy to heart and is designed to reflect the company's ongoing commitment to stakeholders worldwide. The report is presented in CD
format and online at scjohnson.com, with a printed executive summary. The format was conceived in order to make company information more accessible to the widest variety of
stakeholders, but it also complements the company's environmental stance. One of the family's major goals is to reduce the company's footprints on the environment, so an enormous
paper report would have been a major misstep.
The content of the report reflects the family company's values, as well. The report covers corporate social issues like workplace excellence, global expansion, safety
performance and reduction in fossil fuel use and emissions. Photos in the executive summary are of employees and their families, and video in the report showcases Johnson family
members, and their views on the company's 116-year history and its future.
Therese Van Ryne, PR Manager and her team began the report in July, putting out a call for information. She made her request very specific, asking worldwide affiliates for
information on workplace excellence, community and environmental leadership, and received just that. "If there's one basic rule that we've followed," she says, "it's not to look
at [the report] from the beginning, but to look at an end goal. Decide on a key theme you want to deliver and drive toward that end goal."
The report was completed in January and sent to stakeholders and went live on the Web site in February.
Hallmark's board of directors unanimously agreed the 2002 report was "the best they had ever seen." The PR team has also noticed a dramatic reduction in requests for the
information the report covers, indicating they delivered it the right way.
(Van Ryne, [email protected])