Bowater injects new life into investor relations

SIX MINUTES is all it takes, on average, for most annual reports to travel from the envelope to the bin, according to CGI, an international company that designs annual reports.

Bowater has found a novel way to delay that journey and advertise one of its products into the bargain. The cover of the 1994 annual report of the packaging-to-engineering group features an enigmatic blank adhesive label. When shareholders open the report, they find instructions to unpeel a similar sticker and place it over the one on the cover. After a few minutes the labels react chemically to reveal a message. After a week or two, they reveal a second message. While they wait, shareholders might even read the report.

The idea came from The Partners, the design company that gave Bowater its current corporate identity - a bow-plus-water motif underlining its name. Since 1988, they have also created annual reports to celebrate different aspects of Bowater's activities. 'Each year, you can add to the document because you know so much more about the company,' Aziz Cami of The Partners says. 'When we first worked for them, even though they are a print specialist, they didn't even print their own report.'

Now, high-quality photography is used to highlight Bowater's paper and printing capabilities. The 1992 report went a stage further, with a flattened pharmaceutical cardboard box cutout as the cover. 'It's a sales platform. I try to feature products we actually manufacture,' says Bob Bird, Bowater's director of group public relations, who commissioned The Partners.

The requirements for an annual report leave designers plenty of scope. As long as company information is presented as legally demanded, the rest of the document is free of constraints. In the 1980s, annual reports were marked by creative excess. During the recession, this came to be seen as self-indulgence - an attitude that has taken root. Even companies reporting a good year now tone it down a little.

Although Mr Cami believes the Bowater document may be the first interactive annual report, he and his client are adamant that theirs is no gimmick. The labels, called Reactt, take advantage of new technology developed by Bowater Labels, which may find uses in foodstuffs, pharmaceuticals and other industries.

Chemicals migrate once the two labels are placed together, causing a change of acidity. This alters the colour of a dye that is present from an opaque blue to a clear orange through which a message can be read.

The Bowater report explains that the two-part message idea has a serious application 'as a double warning - like traffic signals showing amber, then red'. For example, one part of a message could become legible when chilled food reaches a key temperature above which it is likely to spoil. The second message would show when the period for normal storage had elapsed.

According to Andy Penfold of Bowater Labels, similar dual coding could be applied to vaccines, photographic film, radioactive products and other chemicals.

The Partners heard about Reactt labels when they were briefed on the work of Bowater's 'intrapreneurs', who try to cross-fertilise the innovations dreamed up by its constituent companies.

Mr Cami could see no easy way to bring the idea to life by writing a feature. Instead, he decided to show and tell.

Mr Bird hopes that uses as yet unanticipated might be stimulated when people see it on the annual report. 'You don't know how it could be used. That's what excited me,' he says.