BT’s new corporate purpose We connect for good came to the fore during the global pandemic, when its customers relied on the company to keep businesses running and families and friends connected.
But the launch of the purpose was not the only change to the business, as it also refreshed its strategy and set out a new 2030 ambition. All these elements had been conveyed to investors but agency Emperor was challenged to communicate BT’s short-term Covid response, as well as its longer-term ambitions for the business.
Its solution was to take a story-led approach to the year’s online review. Rather than, as is often the case, replicating the strategic report section of an annual report, it decided to use the digital space to showcase the impact of BT’s strategy in the context of its purpose in a way that would resonate with all stakeholders.
Evergreen content, such as the business model, lives on BT’s corporate website which enabled the online review to focus on powerful stories of the company’s investments and the impact these are making.
Taking a mobile first approach meant that all decisions around navigation, users’ journeys and accessing content were taken to ensure the review worked seamlessly on a small screen as well as larger ones.
As users land on the home page, BT’s corporate purpose fills the screen, the final word quickly changes to ‘colleagues’, ‘customers’, ‘country’, ‘tomorrow’ before returning to ‘good’, emphasising the impact of its purpose on different stakeholders.
A short film A purposeful year provides a snapshot of BT’s activities, including details of how it helped organisations through the pandemic and insights into what the future might hold. There’s also a conversational Q&A film between Ed Petter, group corporate affairs director, and Philip Jansen, BT’s chief executive, which was conducted over Zoom.
A mixture of video-led, bite sized case studies bring BT’s actions and commitments to life, integrating its work on the sustainability front with its corporate role. Users can easily filter those of interest using the headers seen earlier – good, colleagues, customers, country and tomorrow. Each case study has its own link, which encourages sharing on social.
Since launch, the online review has reached audiences across more than 50 countries, with one in four accessing via a mobile device. It is holding users’ attention for longer than previous reviews and has a 70 per cent engagement rate with users completing up to seven events per session.
