IROs Flexing New Muscles this Earnings Season: Spotify, Chipotle, Unilever and More
Steal these tactics from IROs that are shaking up the way they approach Investor Marketing & Financial Communications
This earnings season, IROs are getting creative with how they connect with investors. From social media updates to eye-catching content, companies like Spotify, Chipotle, and Unilever are changing the game in investor communications.
Here's a look at how they're doing it and what you can learn from them.
Investors take a stroll with SPOT’s CEO
Spotify CEO Daniel Ek shared a recap of the company’s Q2 earnings results on X, Instagram, and LinkedIn. To date the video has racked up more than 150,000 views on X, with more than 4,000 engagements across Instagram and LinkedIn.
The lo-fi video feels more like a Facetime with a friend than a corporate communications tactic, and that’s by design. Investor marketing and financial communications are rapidly modernizing to meet the behaviors of next-gen retail investors, in addition to a new crop of institutional investors and analysts who are also accustomed to taking in content in multiple formats. Worth noting, Spotify was an early innovator in creative investor marketing, as they provide all their earnings call audio streams on Spotify.
Similarly, Robinhood (HOOD) has extended the reach of their quarterly results via short-form video recaps shared on LinkedIn. Likewise, Tilray Brands (TLRY) manages an IR-specific X account where they share bite-size recaps of key financial updates. Walmart (WMT) CEO Doug McMillion will also share results updates with associates on Instagram.
The lesson: Leaner IR teams will look to the premium production quality of larger brands like Robinhood with envy, as these resources are typically not available to them. Yet the push to authenticity in this realm stands to level the playing field for companies that are able to execute on the content creation tools available to them already.
See also: C-Suite Branding: The Key to Connecting with Next-Gen Investors
Chipotle CEO addresses that viral TikTok
Chipotle (CMG) has been in the headlines this summer for being the poster child of shrinkflation in QSR. The murmurs began when customers took to social media to capture what they perceived as a change in portion sizes. During the company’s earnings call earlier this month, CMG CEO Brian Niccol addressed the headlines head-on. Based on feedback the brand was receiving in social media, he says they conducted an audit of portion sizes across their locations and isolated a limited number of restaurants (less than 10%, according to Niccol) that would require retraining.
Beverage brand Celsius Holdings (CELH) was also victim to negative viral chatter on social media earlier this summer after a rumor about the safety of its drinks took off on TikTok.
The lesson: Social media monitoring has long been a staple of brand marketing teams. Increasingly, as consumers and investors intersect, these conversations also become relevant to IROs. In addition to spotting potential topics to address or get ahead of, IR teams can also view the volume and sentiment across conversations on X, Reddit, and more and use that data to drive insights into their financial communication strategies.
See also: A Framework for Expanding Investor Relations Metrics
Unilever takes us inside its 1H 2024 results
Historically, company investor materials and updates were in text-forward formats: PDFs, website pages, and the like. But as investor marketing has become increasingly important, companies like Unilever are creating more dynamic storytelling experiences.
To showcase its 1H 2024 recap, Unilever (UL) built a landing page within its IR site designed to capture the company’s momentum and plan’s moving forward. The page includes rich media (video), bold design, and charts that bring the numbers to life in a way that rows in a table cannot.
The lesson: Quarterly earnings milestones mark an opportunity for IROs to reinforce key narratives and progress made for a captive audience of investors and shareholders who are following their updates. Companies like Unilever understand that these touchpoints can be amplified by investing in the marketing of the reporting, versus the reporting in itself. (Stakeholder Labs recently launched a no-code IR site builder tool where IROs and their teams can quickly create beautiful web experiences that can be updated at any time).
Differentiating through thought leadership with Dynex Capital
Yield is on the rise among investors seeking to balance out their portfolios. Yet of the options of dividend or yield-producing stocks, differentiation beyond dividend rate is hard to come by. That’s why mortgage REIT Dynex Capital (DX) is hoping that educating investors about the housing market will have the knock-on effect of engendering trust in their management team to consistently generate returns.
Dynex co-CEO, President, and Chief Investment Officer Smriti Popenoe joined After Earnings this week to add color to the different types of REITs, real estate trends, and Fed moves—in addition to sharing takeaways from their most recent earnings call. During the interview, Popenoe reinforced that trust in management is an important thing for REIT investors to look to, and even chronicled her experiences working in banking during the housing market crisis in 2007. “It was like that movie ‘Margin Call,’ but every day for a year and half,” she said.
The lesson: Differentiation can come from a variety of sources: business model, product innovations, and marketing. From an investor marketing standpoint, using thought leadership is a great way to boost confidence in the management team’s capabilities to succeed in their space. Educating investors about your category or the economy at large can provide the added benefit of investors seeing your company as experts in the space, and not just a ticker.
See thought leadership examples from After Earnings:
Enterprise tech with ServiceNow (NOW) CFO Gina Mastantuono
Commercial EV with REE Automotive (REE) CEO Daniel Barel
Medical psychedelics with Atai Life Sciences (ATAI) founder Daniel Angermeyer
Buy now pay later with Affirm (AFRM) CFO Michael Linford
Space technology & infrastructure with Redwire Space (RDW) CEO Peter Cannito
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The bottom line for IROs? Don’t be afraid to shake things up. Embracing new ways to share your company’s story, whether through social media or creative content, can make a big difference in how investors connect with your message.
Stakeholder Labs builds tools for modern organizations that want to up level their shareholder analytics and engagement to support long-term growth. Contact us to learn more.