Allianz : Mapping case studies

A dynamic global directory stimulates grazing.

The Site

Allianz, a Germany based financial services group, presents articles about its sustainability projects in a dynamic global directory.

Allianz includes Responsibility as a primary section of its group site and within that an interactive guide to ‘Sustainability in practice’. The feature opens on a panel that contains a revolving globe and two filters below the caption ‘Discover how Allianz puts sustainability into practice’. The first filter offers a choice of two categories: Global issue and Stakeholder group. This choice determines the options in the second filter; for example, Global issue shows Access to finance, Demographic change, Climate change, Digitalization.

Once both filters are primed the illustration changes to a world atlas on which locations are marked; clicking on one of these initially opens a picture caption bar at the location; a further click expands the main panel to reveal a case study. A link at the bottom of the article offers a route to more information about Allianz’s approach to the issue.

The Takeaway

Allianz’s case study viewing platform presents itself as a sleek model for a dynamic directory that could easily be transplanted to other areas of a site, such as careers, locations or company history. Part of its appeal in the Responsibility context is that it encourages browsing of the range of featured activity by combining selection and display of multiple pieces of content within the current page; and allows interest to be followed up through layers of increasingly detailed description, only leaving the platform at the point of handover to related corporate content.

Ironically, the ease of grazing the directory brings into question the appropriateness of the feature for Allianz itself. What it suggests all too quickly is that sustainability is in practice in relatively few locations – there is just one case study for each of the four Global issue options and three of the five Stakeholder groups. In that sense, the impression made does not match the expectation created.

First published on 15 September, 2011