As per usual, I’m part of the way through a really great book right now. Rohit Bhargava’s ‘Personality NOT Included‘ (link to Amazon) looks closely at the benefits of brands having a discernible personality and of companies no longer being faceless.

The challenge for brands who have spent huge amounts of money and time on being opaque is to become far more transparent in terms of the way they communicate with their customers. Being more transparent means you not only have to have something to say, but you also need to be able to say it with personality.

A great Aussie example of a company putting personality into practice recently is Photon. Having personality is about injecting a bit of life into every potential customer and client touchpoint, and Photon have done this with the release of their company report, a document usually painfully devoid of even the slightest sense of personality.

“Being part of The Population, the newest kids on the Photon block, it’s great to see Photon show a bit of personality, especially with something that is usually as dry as the annual report,” says Julian Cole, one of the founders of The Population, a new pure-play social media agency.

As well as moving the majority of their written reports online, Photon have injected a much-needed shot of personality into the staid format of the annual report. For a company like Photon, with so many different personalities under it’s roof, it seems especially fitting that there should be a sense of liveliness and fun about their communications.

Check out the company report on Photon‘s website and watch the great launch video for the annual report below.

The corporate comms bar has been set higher by this release, and it will be interesting to see which other companies in Australia follow Photon’s lead and try and develop their own personalities.