Today marks the launch of Black Sun’s “The Art of Communicating a Consistent Corporate Story, 2015,” our unique insight into FTSE 100 and FTSE 250 cross-channel communications.

Now in its second year, this research places a spotlight on the Annual Report and corporate website as the two critical first ports of call for a wide range of key stakeholder audiences. It examines how the most important strategic, financial performance and governance information of the Annual Report is made available through the corporate website, focusing in particular on the consistency of the content between the two channels.

Our findings reveal that neither the FTSE 100 nor FTSE 250 has yet mastered the art of effective cross-channel communications. Far from it, in fact:

• Only 44% of FTSE 100 Annual Report content is carried through to the corporate website.
• Just 68% of the content which appears both in the website and in the Annual Report is consistent between the two.
• 41% of FTSE 250 Annual Report content features on the corporate website.
• Only 55% of this content is shared consistently between channels.

 

Delving deeper, our section-by-section results shed a valuable light on the communicative priorities of the UK’s top companies, illuminating not only how information is leveraged across channels but the areas in which audiences are most often left searching for straight answers.

You can access the findings here.

“Consistency is the bedrock on which the power of corporate communication relies,” commented Richard Dixon, our Chief Digital Officer. “Without it, the story you tell risks losing the coherence and integrity necessary to inspire trust among your core stakeholder audiences.”