Digital Media Specialists

The end client is one of the UK’s largest brewing and pub management companies.

Requirement

To develop a full online annual report that mirrored the branding and look and feel of their print annual report combined with the interactivity that the web allows and to give shareholders a viable alternative to receiving a print version of the report. Key functional elements included:

• A separate annual report site accessed from their investor relations site
• Rich media elements to allow site users to quickly access key messages and information in visually appealing and engaging way
• All content, accounts and notes presented in HTML that was fully accessible and met W3C guidelines
• The ability for users to select specific PDF versions of the report’s contents and download them to their desktop

Technical Solution

The majority of the report was developed in HTML to ensure a high level of accessibility and ease of access for all users.Additional elements were created using JavaScript and Flash to create interactive features and provide a more visually interesting presence for the site.

Project Mechanics

The project ran for approximately 4 weeks from initial scoping to launch and involved very close cooperation with the agency at all stages of the project.

Some key stages of the project included:

• Detailed planning with the agency to ensure that the online report would be ready at the same date the printed version was released
• Developing HTML templates and the structure of the site ahead of the content being released from the agency
• Populating content in two phases to ensure that general content was populated as early as possible and then working in parallel with the agency’s team to populate financials, notes and last minute changes
• The project delivery team working in overlapping shifts to ensure that they were available around the clock in the period immediately prior to and post launch to accommodate last minute amends and content updates

Conclusion

Delivering online annual reports requires 100% accuracy whilst delivering in very short timeframe in an environment where frequent amends and updates are a given. Our extensive experience in delivering online annual reports ensured that we were able to work seamlessly with the agency as an extension of their team to deliver the report on time and without error.