AirAsia Berhad’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 fêted at the Pearl Anniversary Gala, held at The Plaza Hotel in New York City in October. 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 organisations, which boasts global representation. On top of that, Grand Awards are given only to the top 2% of all the Gold winning annual reports. This year’s awards saw a total of 2,124 competing entries from 32 countries.
AirAsia wins Two Gold Awards at the 30th International ARC Awards in New York City:
Gold for Grand Award: Best in Asia Pacific
Gold for Best Non-Traditional Annual Report: Airlines
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 in 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.
Elina Effendi, Head of Investor Relations of AirAsia Berhad said, “Firstly, it is important for me to highlight that this award is a recognition of the efforts by a team of passionate people who have worked tirelessly to put this publication together, with the help of Allstars from across the AirAsia Group. As the World’s Best Low-Cost Airline we strive to always be at the forefront in innovation. We are proud to be honoured with this prestigious award recognising the creative input to our 2015 annual report. Our annual reports have become collectable items and we have been receiving requests for copies from corporates 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.â€
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.’ Apart from discovering new and interesting destinations with AirAsia, in the annual report we have sections such as ‘Discovering Your Purpose’ where we highlighted the #AirAsiaMAKNA campaign and the story of our people who were personally affected by cancer. Another section was on ‘Discovering Your Ambitions’ where we talked about empowering our people to achieve their dreams and featured our staff such as 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.”
In conjunction with the prize-giving ceremony at The ARC Awards Pearl Anniversary Gala in New York City, the winning annual reports received world-wide attention and recognition with international exhibitions in Europe and Asia. These exhibitions allowed the general public to read, touch and feel the financial documents and showcase the technical and creative aspects of print and paper-making. They also provide an up-to-date view on international horizons beyond national borders. The winning annual reports were displayed at the following cities. Each were open to the public for about a week:
Vienna – 1 September 2016
Hamburg – 15 September 2016
Hong Kong – 18 November 2016
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.
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