In 2022, AstraZeneca and Superunion won 'Annual report of the year' at the Corporate & Financial Awards, by telling their corporate story in a streamlined, effectual manner.

The entire world was aware of AstraZeneca’s landmark role in tackling the Covid-19 pandemic. But that only compounded the challenge for the organisation in telling its corporate story in 2021. It had to reflect on the pandemic while also discussing a recent acquisition, meeting US and UK regulations and publishing its second TFCD disclosure. It set itself the additional challenge of achieving all of this in a streamlined, effectual manner.

Superunion met these needs successfully through a smart design system that surfaced key communications and provided a solid hierarchy of information. The company also recognised the need to innovate its reporting suite and thus printed separate, specialist reports on topics such as ‘risk’ and ‘development pipeline’ to meet the needs of individual readers. The report is not only effective and clear, it is also beautiful. Judges loved the design strategy and the commendable achievement of actually reducing pages in what could have been a gargantuan report.

One judge said, “The publishing of separate content for specialist end users was a good touch.” Another added, “It’s well thought out with the right information in the right place. The design works extremely hard and to great effect.” The report’s ability to make simple the extremely complex and still deliver on a massive communications challenge makes it the deserving winner of this year’s ‘Annual report of the year’ award.

To read more about the winning projects in the Corporate & Financial Awards you can do so by viewing the 2022 winners book.

The Corporate & Financial Awards recognises excellence in financial corporate communications. To find out more and to enter your work, visit the awards website.