H&H honours the top corporate websites in Italy

Monday, November 26, 2007

The fourth annual H&H Webranking Awards Ceremony was held monday, November 26 at the Corriere della Sera headquarters in Milan, recognizing the top performing corporate websites in the 2007 H&H Webranking Italy survey. Approximately 150 people attended the ceremony, including representatives from over 25 of Italy’s largest listed corporations.

The H&H Webranking research, published in collaboration with the Financial Times and Corriere della Sera, represents Europe’s most comprehensive survey of corporate online communication. The 82 largest listed companies in Italy are considered out of a total of 630 companies throughout Europe.

The awards were presented by Helena Wennergren, senior partner at H&H in Stockholm, in several categories. Autogrill was honoured with a prize for Commendable Website Initiative, for its launch of a new corporate website dedicated to the use of interactive Web 2.0 applications. Benetton received an award for the Best Media Section, and Parmalat was recognised as this year’s Best Improver for the achievement of the most increased score of all Italian websites in the survey.

Third place overall in the Italian ranking went to Edison for the high quality, contents and interactive features of its website. UniCredit received the distinction of coming in second place, with an overall score of 87.75 points out of a possible 100. First place went to Telecom Italia, which also was number one among all 630 of Europe’s largest listed companies.

Several keynote speeches were given prior to the handing out of the awards in an event moderated by Massimo Fracaro, Editor-in-Chief of CorrierEconomia.

Massimiliano Carnevali, the head of Listed Companies, Compliance and Disclosure at the Borsa Italiana opened up the first part of the event, speaking briefly on the topic of the evolution of online communication in Italy. He was followed by Mario Spreafico, Director of Investments for Citibank Italy who discussed online communication in Italy from an international perspective. The head of the Italian market for Sustainability Asset Management – Dow Jones Sustainability Index (SAM –DJSI), Jon Winslade, spoke on the issue of sustainable ratings and communication in the area of corporate social responsibility (CSR).

Also present were Stuart Anderson, director of UK-based communications consultancy 85four and Alessandro Sordi, managing director and co-founder of Dada, a multinational web and mobile community service company.  They focused on the subjects of online annual reporting and Web 2.0 respectively.   

The purpose and contents of the 2007 research were highlighted and the new Webranking criteria explained by Joakim Lundquist, the head of H&H in Italy. Also presenting for H&H Italy were James Osborne and Nicole Heyermann on the importance of copy editing for corporate websites.