Investor Communication Gets Creative
Cheers or jeers for Loews? The holding company that provides business insurance, operates hotels and produces energy, recently stepped outside the box and created a comic strip to connect with investors. With such a diversified business, it may make sense that Loews is testing new communications methods and aiming to simplify its message. Or does it?
According to a recent BloombergBusinessweek article , the idea came to CEO, Jim Tisch, during a discussion with Loews’ annual report designer, during which he was considering a more engaging way to present company information versus more typical (and some may say tedious) measures. The Adventures of Lotta Value, Investment Hunter!” is meant to help retail investors decide whether to invest in Loews. The comic takes readers on a journey to find the key to the company’s success, which is “tucked away in vaults at each subsidiary.”
Loews is not the first company to experiment with catchy means to speak to external audiences. In conjunction with its 2012 user conference, dubbed SuiteWorld, NetSuite President and CEO Zach Nelson, and Founder, Chief Technology Officer and Chairman of the Board, Evan Goldberg, utilized a humorous video to discuss the company’s business.
What’s next? “A organ opera reporting on its latest fiscal year, a Facebook poetry slam, an IBM string quartet, or an Herbalife ballet,” pondered Stanford Law School professor and a former member of the Securities and Exchange Commission, Joseph Grundfest, in the BloombergBusinessweek article.
As long as public companies continue to use formal and approved outlets for disclosure of material information, finding an effective way to fight through the clutter and noise, and make investors smile along the way, deserves a big cheer from me.
— Laurie Berman, lberman@pondel.com
