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Executive Summary 
Corporate online communications during the global financial crisis
Introduction
The financial crisis has created an exceptional circumstance in which to evaluate the quality of corporateonline communications. As companies have been affected across the board, this has presented anopportunity to make a comparison between their online communication methods. We took the occasion tosurvey 51 of the world’s largest financial institutions and evaluate their online responses in October 2008 assignificant events were unfolding.This research has highlighted the growing gap between the demand and supply of corporate information.While users are increasingly turning to online resources, companies are failing to use their own websites totell their stories. This poses a serious problem as the window of opportunity to respond to and generatenews is shorter and more immediate, necessitating faster corporate action in the face of breaking news.An opportunity is presented by the web in that it allows companies to answer immediately and to the widestaudience possible. Moreover, unlike third-party sources, the website is an effective tool for complete controlover corporate messages. Information posted on the website can be used as a primary basis for reportingpicked up by sources without direct access to management.By using the web as an integrated part of corporate communication strategy companies can meet thisdemand in a more time-efficient and cost-effective manner. These processes should be happening on a day-to-day basis and the sooner they are addressed the more coordinated the reaction in times of uncertainty.Our research shows that companies failed to satisfy and anticipate the need for greater transparencythrough their corporate websites. This poorly managed response demonstrated a worrying lack of concernfor the re-establishment of credibility among their internal and external audiences.
The Research
Throughout October 2008 we evaluated the quality of the English language versions of the corporatewebsites of 51 of the world’s largest banks. In order to underpin the importance of our evaluation we firstlytook various measurements in order to quantify the demand for information online. We analysed this demandby surveying the number of Google searches, Wikipedia hits and blog entries for key words such as ‘financialcrisis’, ‘stock market’ and ‘core capital’, as well as names of companies such as Merrill Lynch and LehmanBrothers.Our selection of company websites includes the largest commercial banks in the leading economies ofEurope, the US and Japan. We analysed their websites as the crisis reached a peak in the wake of thebankruptcy of Lehman Brothers, paying particular attention to companies that needed state intervention inFrance, Iceland, the UK and Switzerland.
 
 
Results
Demand for information
Heavy traffic increases were recorded on top investment/finance and business websites such as Yahoo andGoogle Finance. Blind searches for key terms such as ‘financial crisis’, ‘stock market’ and ‘core capital’ roseup to five times the average traffic of the year preceding October. Another interesting feature was that thedemand was short-lived, peaking on the day negative news was announced and then tailing off to previouslevels within a space of about 2 weeks.
Graphic 1
: Google searches for crisis-related terms from June-November 2008
0123456
   J  u  n   1   2   0   0   8   J  u  n   8   2   0   0   8   J  u  n   1   5   2   0   0   8   J  u  n   2   2   2   0   0   8   J  u  n   2   9   2   0   0   8   J  u   l   6   2   0   0   8   J  u   l   1   3   2   0   0   8   J  u   l   2   0   2   0   0   8   J  u   l   2   7   2   0   0   8   A  u  g   3   2   0   0   8   A  u  g   1   0   2   0   0   8   A  u  g   1   7   2   0   0   8   A  u  g   2   4   2   0   0   8   A  u  g   3   1   2   0   0   8   S  e  p   7   2   0   0   8   S  e  p   1   4   2   0   0   8   S  e  p   2   1   2   0   0   8   S  e  p   2   8   2   0   0   8   O  c   t   5   2   0   0   8   O  c   t   1   2   2   0   0   8   O  c   t   1   9   2   0   0   8   O  c   t   2   6   2   0   0   8   N  o  v   2   2   0   0   8
Financial CrisisStock MarketCore Capital
 
Source:
 www.google.com/trends *
Numbers on the Y axis represent multiples of traffic increase over the period surveyed. The number 1 represents anaverage of the number of searches from November 2, 2007 to November 2, 2008
Internet users were also tapping into social media for crisis-related information as demonstrated by thedemand placed on sites such as Wikipedia and blogs. Hits on the days that news was announced such asthe collapse of Lehman Brothers produced hundreds of thousands of searches. To examine how thefinancial crisis was affecting the blogosphere, we surveyed data from Technorati, the blog analytics website,which showed similar sharp upward spikes in the number of blog entries mentioning corporation names ortopics related to the financial crisis.2
 
 
Corporate responsiveness online
 The world’s largest banks failed to provide adequate disclosure online at a time when companies needed tocommunicate even more with the market in order to confront the climate of confusion which characterisedthe financial crisis. Overall the online communications of financial institutions gave the impression of
‘business as usual’
despite the exceptional nature of the circumstances. Companies failed to respondquickly to news online and did not seek to engage stakeholders.The survey revealed eight online communication methods as well as five kinds of information available oncorporate websites. These criteria were used to determine the effectiveness and level of disclosure provided.
Graphic 2
: Research parameters
Forms of communicationTypes of communication
Press releasesDirect reference to the financial crisisDedicated web pages to the crisisBackground to the financial crisisWebcastStatements on financial stabilityManagement statementEconomic analysisExternal links to third party sourcesInformation about government actionsCorporate newsletterQ&A sectionLinks or dedicated areas on the homepageSeven companies provided no crisis-related communication whatsoever on their websites. Thirty ninecompanies (76%) provided at least one press release mentioning the crisis or negative events, adhering tostandard disclosure requirements. Still it is revealing that a quarter of the companies most severely affectedby the financial crisis failed to do even this much.Besides the standard practice of issuing press releases, communication levels online with regards to thecrisis drop drastically. Few websites put their top management forward with only
30% producing amanagement statement.
 Few companies sought to explain the crisis and how it affected them at all: 64%
avoided direct referenceto events on
their website or did not mention it all. Only 12% produced
background information
. Less thanhalf provided any sort of statement regarding their
financial stability
.Twenty seven percent
created web pages
specifically focusing on issues related to the crisis and 25%produced a
Q&A
addressing stakeholders’ most frequently asked questions.Another solution, providing
links to external authoritative third-party websites,
was only used in 16% ofcompanies surveyed. The following table illustrates our overall results for all criteria:
Table 1
: Overall results for crisis-related information provided on corporate websitesType of Information Percentage ofcompanies providinginformationPress releases76%Dedicated webpage27%Webcast29%Management statement31%3
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