The League of American Communications Professionals LLC (LACP) was established in 2001 to provide the public relations industry with a forum or a platform to discuss best practices within the profession. In addition, it also recognizes organizations that showcase outstanding communications capabilities in the form of awards in multiple categories and industries. For example, awarding companies for their annual reports and other corporate reports.
To achieve its stated goal of facilitating discussions in the public relations/communications industry, the LACP has 30,000 subscribers that receive its monthly newsletter.
These newsletters help share best practices and provide tools, tips, and resources to professionals in addition to hosting forums to discuss trends and challenges faced by the industry. LACP also hosts quarterly competitions that attract hundreds of entries from corporations and agencies across the world. The participants include 9 of the top 10 Fortune 500 Firms
LACP has 4 divisions that provide support services, research services, competition services, and member services that have a multitude of offerings ranging from PR tools, best practices reports, Narrative evaluation services, quarterly competitions, discussion boards, student programs, etc.
LACP awards companies from around the world and holds them periodically a year. The three main award functions are:
In this blog, we will focus on LACP’s Vision awards focused on corporate reports submitted by corporates or their agencies from around the world. It should be noted that it doesn’t necessarily have to be annual reports; submissions or entries may be integrated reports, sustainability reports, ESG reports, CSR reports, digital annual/integrated reports, etc.
The submitted entries or annual reports would fall under the industries of agribusiness, automotive, banks, business services, chemicals, conglomerates, consumer–general durables, consumer–household durables, consumer–food products, consumer–household products, education, energy, equipment, finance–capital markets, finance – diversified services, government, insurance, materials, non-profit, other, pharmaceuticals, real estate, technology, and transportation. Further, within each industry, reports can win platinum, gold, silver, or bronze awards that are dependent on parameters such as:
Each parameter is allocated a maximum of 10 points (except for the first impression that is scored 30 points) with reports being scored a total of 100 points.
Due to a large number of contenders and multiple winners under different categories and over many years, we have taken the liberty of portraying the top 5 winners of LACP’s Top 100 Gallery. These are corporates from across the world and in varied industries but can help provide the reader with a benchmark on the level of effort and thought that goes into the conceptualization, design, and content of an annual report that wins the LACP award.
The Top 5 include the following:
United Therapeutics was the Platinum award winner of LACP’s Vision awards for their FY 2020 annual report. United Therapeutics belongs to the pharmaceutical industry with annual revenue that falls in the bracket of $1 billion to $10 billion. The award-winning report had the theme line ‘ Multiple Shots on Goals’.
Out of a total of 100 points, United Therapeutics won with 99 points having scored 10 out of 10 on their report cover, letter to shareholders, report narrative, report financials, message clarity, information accessibility, and a 9/10 on creativity giving the company the number 1 ranking in the Top 100 gallery. They were also recognized for Top 100 reports worldwide and Best In-house report worldwide.
Capital Small Finance Bank Limited is second in the ranking and belongs to the ‘Banks – Commercial’ industry with its entry falling in the revenue category of $10 million - $100 million. The Company’s FY 2021 annual report won the platinum award and ranks #2 in the Top 100 Worldwide with a theme line ‘21 years of Trust and Performance’.
This report also scored 99 out of 100 in total with a 9 out of 10 in message clarity and a perfect 10/10 in all other parameters.
Shanghai ATRenew Technology Co. Ltd. is 3rd on the Top 100 Worldwide list of LACP that won the award along with design agency Beijing Aibo Advertising Co. Ltd. The company belongs to the ‘Technology – IT Services’ industry. It falls under the revenue bracket of $1 billion - $10 billion and has an employee count of 100-1,000. Significantly, the award was won for their ESG report from 2020. Similar to the previous two entries, this report also scored 99/100 with a 9/10 in message clarity and a perfect score in other parameters.
Tasty Bite Eatables Limited takes the #4 spot for the FY 2021 Annual report with the theme ‘Necessarily Natural. Increasingly Organic.’ Once again, scoring 99/100 and taking the platinum award, this company belongs to the ‘Consumer – Food/Beverage/Tobacco’ category and generates annual revenue that falls in the bracket of $10 - $100 million with 100-1,000 employees.
Tse Sui Luen Jewellery (International) Limited takes the #5 spot on the Top 100 along with the design agency Toppan Merrill Limited for their annual report for FY 2021. It was recognized with the platinum award and the best agency report worldwide. The company has a revenue bracket of $100 million - $1 billion with 1,000-10,000 employees.
As you might have noticed, creating an award-winning Annual Report is no easy task. It requires months of effort in addition to the ability to conceptualize the theme and report, create visually appealing designs and generate transparent and clear content to get your brand’s image and message across to stakeholders. To achieve this, most corporations hire design agencies to work with, specifically agencies that specialize in business reports. One such agency that has a history of winning LACP awards for its annual reports and other reports is Report Yak. Take a look at our showcase to see the companies we partner with and the result of our efforts. We look forward to hearing from you to discuss your next report!
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