SEPANG: AirAsia Bhd’s 2015 annual report themed ‘Discover More with AirAsia’ won the prestigious Gold Award under the ‘Grand Award – Best of Asia Pacific’ category at the 30th International ARC Awards.
The winners were feted at the Pearl Anniversary Gala, held at The Plaza Hotel in New York City in Oct.
The Company also received the Gold Award for ‘Best Non-Traditional Annual Report: Airlines’ category.
The ARC Awards honours excellence in annual reports and is considered the most respected and prestigious competition in the industry.
Winning an ARC prize is highly coveted due to the impartiality of the judging organisation, which boasts global representation. On top of that, Grand Awards are given only to the top 2 per cent of all the Gold winning annual reports.
This year’s awards saw a total of 2,124 competing entries from 32 countries.
Established by MerComm Inc. in 1987, the Annual Report Competition (ARC) Awards aims to encourage noteworthy and vital writing, as well as imaginative and original design.
Preliminary and final judges represent top-level investor relations executives, financial executives, writers, designers, and photographers from over 50 different agencies and corporations. They hail from Austria, Canada, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, Luxembourg, Mexico, New Zealand, Sri Lanka, Switzerland, Turkey, and the United States. Criteria used to choose winners included Cover Design, Chairman’s Letter, Writing, Interior Design, Financial Presentation, and, overall, how well the spirit of the company is reflected in the annual report.
Air Asia’s Head of Investor Relations, Elina Effendi, said the award is a recognition of the efforts by a team of passionate people who have worked tirelessly to put the publication together, with the help of Allstars (AirAsia employees) from across the AirAsia Group.
“We are proud to be honoured with this prestigious award recognising the creative input to our 2015 annual report.
She said Airasia’s annual reports have become collectable items and they have been receiving requests for copies from corporations and individuals not just in Malaysia but all over the world.
“With such high expectations given, every year, we challenge ourselves to improve the quality of our annual report as it is a representation of the AirAsia Allstars and the work they have done during the year”, she added.
Elaborating on the theme of the annual report, she said, "Our annual reports are all about our people. We feature different Allstars every year based on the theme of the annual report for the year. For this publication in particular, the theme was 'Discover More with AirAsia.'
She said apart from promoting new and interesting destinations with AirAsia, the annual report also has sections such as 'Discovering Your Purpose', which highlights the #AirAsiaMAKNA campaign and the story of employees who were personally affected by cancer.
Elina said another section was on 'Discovering Your Ambitions', where the company talked about empowering Airasia’s people to achieve their dreams.
This included the likes of Kugan Tangiisuran from Malaysia, who was a dispatch boy but is now a pilot; a Thai AirAsia Allstar, Pinkaew Sujanakobkul, who was a ramp agent but is now an ICT Supervisor; and Tantu Agung Suharto, the Head of Corporate Quality and Assurance in Indonesia AirAsia, who started his career with the company as a guest service assistant."
AirAsia’s award-winning annual reports can be viewed and downloaded at http://www.airasia.com/my/en/about-us/ir-annual-reports.page. Nova Fusion Sdn Bhd is the Malaysian-based creative agency commissioned by AirAsia Berhad for the creative execution and the publication of the 2015 annual report.