Last Wednesday, Arla won the renowned prize at Dansk Industri – the second recognition in the reporting world, as they also took the award at PWC's Regnskabsprisen+ back in June. Since we worked on Arla's first-ever integrated report in 2022, we have been fortunate enough to apply the same award-winning design principles within Arla's 2023 half-year report.

To understand how the fresh collaboration between Arla and Kontrapunkt continues to bear fruit throughout the reporting year, we have to backtrack to early spring of 2023.

As with many great projects, research is vital. An understanding that only grew more solid as we exchanged meeting rooms for farm and dairy visits in West Jutland, Denmark. The creation of Arla's half-year report is precisely the result of an invaluable understanding of the company's value chain and potential challenges in the industry of data-driven dairy.

From InDesign to "InField"
Most people in the annual reporting sphere know that the final report is only the tip of an iceberg of thorough strategy work, knowledge-sharing and solid legwork. As Anne Bremholm Hvass, Corporate Reporting Project Manager at Arla, puts it – the well-achieved report is built on the shoulders of a profound understanding and teamwork:

Early in our collaboration with Arla, it was evident that we had to leave Copenhagen to gain knowledge about the target audience, business model and value chain. While we worked closely with the Arla team during the integration process of their 2022 report, the Arla half-year report was crafted on genuine research and semi-ethnographic fieldwork.

The Farmer’s Universe
After spending almost a year designing illustrations and models around Arla's sustainability initiatives, our team got first-hand experience at Torben Sønderby's Klink Innovation farm. Here, we experienced first-hand how Arla farmers are indeed the centre of gravity with their work shaping the future of dairy farming.

From an array of sensors and robots monitoring cow health, methane emissions, and cleaning cow slurry, our perspective of the Arla farmer changed quickly. It became apparent that the portrait of a modern dairy farmer stretches to include skills in data science, engineering, biology, circular economics and, most importantly, ecology.

The insight into Arla's methodology, vision and values were, in other words, experienced – not just communicated. And in such a profound way that the visit at Klink served as the literal backdrop for the particular illustration style supporting Arla's half-year report.

Anne Bremholm Hvass commented:

The illustrations in the report reflect these insights, highlighting farmer initiatives in renewable energy and regenerative farming.

The immersive days spent in early spring 2023 were two days well spent. Our encounter with the Klink Innovation farm served as the baseline for the illustration style, the entire visual landscape and the core narrative of the half-year report. Evidently, the financial narrative should balance with the reality of the farmer's universe.

In essence, rubber boots, blue suits, and newfound friends reinforced the significance of immersion in our client's world. At Kontrapunkt, we believe that great design, strategy, communication, and branding emerge from curiosity and deep research – an approach that may even lead to two awards.