Broadening the reach and appeal of annual communications for Herbert Smith Freehills
Reinvigorating reporting at Herbert Smith Freehills
We developed Herbert Smith Freehill’s 2019 Responsible Business report, featuring inspiring content and a refreshed look and feel.
Impacts and benefits
- A broader responsible business narrative and structure uniting global programmes within a clear framework
- Enhanced performance metrics and reporting
- Greater engagement with internal stakeholders and clients
- Content used across company channels including business development, graduate recruitment and social media
- Report available to view on the Herbert Smith Freehills website
Thank you for everything – the report looks really good and is a marked improvement on previous years.Emma Cooke Head of Citizenship, Herbert Smith Freehills
The story
One of the things we love about what we do is helping our clients to realise their ambitions. So when the team at Herbert Smith Freehills (HSF) told us about their desire to expand responsible business reporting in order to drive further engagement, we were thrilled to be able to support them.
The firm wasn’t new to this, having produced annual reports for each of the previous two years as part of its commitment to the UN Global Compact. Building on this, we were able to recommend an approach that would ultimately expand the reporting scope and generate content to attract a much broader internal and external audience.
During first phase we analysed HSF’s current approach against reporting best practice, targeting and agreeing specific areas for development. We then worked closely with the team to develop a structure and craft a narrative that did full justice to their far-reaching, global approach to responsible business and demonstrating its alignment with corporate objectives.
Through stakeholder interviews with senior partners, we uncovered and wrote new, engaging content – including headline features, performance highlights and case studies to showcase success – before providing our design recommendations for the final report to achieve a refreshed look and feel.