TINE annual report wins award for best digital report
There are many Norwegian companies that are very ambitious when it comes to sustainability. At TINE , they probably go further than most in this area, not least because they have such concrete advantages of thinking about sustainability at all levels. It is as simple as that the milk gets better quality if you do all the things that nature and the next generation also enjoy. From there it was not a long way for TINE when it came to thinking that the Sustainability Report had to be given an important role in the digital annual report .
And that’s where Mission comes in. The challenge they presented us with involved enhancing the level of ambition for the entire digital annual report, which also involved taking everything about sustainability and making it more engaging and less “report-like”. We also visualised TINE’s value chain by illustrating the route taken by milk from the cow to the kitchen.
In this blog, we explain what we did to show that TINE’s serious approach is paying off for both the company and the environment. We’re proud of this digital partnership, which has resulted in a completely new platform for company reporting and presentation. With this, we’ve laid a foundation that TINE can use and develop over the next few years.
A cleanup job
We began the process by structuring all the content from the sustainability report. This mostly involved a large number of articles that were heavy on text. Analysing the TINE value chain indicates that lots of elements go together to form their overall green footprint – everything from animal welfare, food wastage, transport and packaging to sugar consumption and ethical trading. That was why it seemed natural to categorise the various value chain elements individually under the banner of “Sustainability”. The aim of this was to make it easier for users to choose topics that they wanted to view in greater detail. We also added a clear navigation, structure and search function to make it easier for users to navigate through the content.
The basic element of TINE’s business concept is, as they put it, “to add value in close partnership with nature, agriculture and the market”. Large, striking pictures of the countryside and a fairly informal tone of voice greet users on the landing pages in each of the sustainability areas. A summary of the underlying articles is also displayed. At the top level of the information hierarchy, we’ve allowed ourselves to use simple texts that provide a small taster of the more academic articles that people can view if they want to.
A presentation job
The front page is designed step-by-step, a bit like a presentation in PowerPoint or Keynote, where extracts from the most important content are presented in an engaging way that’s easy to understand. Users can navigate seamlessly using a mouse or the arrow keys, or by swiping on a tablet or mobile. It’s easy for users to find the information that they think would be most interesting and that they want to view in greater detail. This allows us to present the essence of the inner life of the company and the high points of the year to a target group that’s completely different to the group of people who read annual reports from cover to cover. We use vertical and horizontal navigation element to indicate the reader’s location in the presentation.
A customisation job
We put a great deal of effort into customising the content on the front page. Here, we had to choose the most important messages that we wanted to emphasise. We assessed the communication value of the various topics for the various target groups. We wanted to add a touch of emotion to the annual report by varying the visuals and adding a message that was to the point. It was important not to pussyfoot around too much, but to get the reader to the heart of the matter quickly and in an engaging fashion. This naturally resulted in an airier, more modern appearance. A combination of animations, photos, videos and interactive elements with adapted messages helps to enhance the whole experience for the increasingly demanding users of today.
Important value choice
Of course, TINE makes extremely stringent quality demands as regards its milk. When it comes to milk quality, the TINE value chain is one of the most important elements to maintain control over. Many, many parties are involved in bringing milk from cow to customer, so TINE needed to visualise and emphasise this entire journey, which they call Melkeveien, the Milk Route.
TINE's value chain puts emphasis on sustainability in all its steps.
To make it easier for TINE employees to get a better overview of the value chain in which they themselves play an important role, we divided this journey into eight stages, with associated stories and illustrations. Each stage is presented in an educational way, where playfulness and seriousness are balanced using colourful and colour-coordinated interactive animations. Ideally in combination with factual texts and data. We’ve linked relevant content from the sustainability report here in order to add an extra dimension to the Milk Route. The interactive elements allow curious readers to explore integrated stories, facts and figures, while simple navigation provides guidance through the eight stages.
Digital opportunities have added something to the annual reports
There’s no doubt that there’s untapped potential in using annual reports in new ways. The acid test to find out whether a report like this works well is if everyone on the site gets just as much or as little information as they need, and it’s even better if you encourage even more people to understand more.
Digitalisation adds value for the audience of TINE's annual report.
With a digital solution , you have a much better opportunity to use the annual report to build your brand. Whether it's about making it clear to the world that sustainability has an integral role in everything your company does, or you want to have an annual report that substantiates that your company is technologically innovative. If a picture says more than a thousand words, think about how much you can say with a digital and thoroughly nominated annual report.