Pictures and public relations in corporate annual reports

A corporate annual report has a wider purpose than the mere communication of financial information. The report is a public relations tool to sell the firm to interested readers. The firm\u27s story is told using the traditional methods financial statements, notes, management letter, and auditor\u27s report. But sooner or later, the firm adopts the use of pictures and narrative captions to aid in the telling of its story. This study examined the first use of photos by 14 large corporations. The average year of first usage was 1947. In most cases, companies evolved slowly into the use of pictures, but a few companies jumped into the activity with a vengeance