For the discussion question, I choose Cadbury is a multinational confectionery brand with its base in the United Kingdom. I visited their UK website as in cadbury.co.uk/ to understand about the forms of communication they use in their website. In addition to that, they’ve several other websites tagged to geolocation such that they can provide customized service to people of the set region.
While exploring the website, I found multiple forms of communication that were used in the website like the inclusion of cookies, and other data which they use to send internet ads in Google, Facebook and other platforms. A business should be able to communicate with all the stakeholder with the use of the website as that is something like a face of the organization to the world in the current trend which they’ve been able to do to most of the extent (Pace & Faules, 1989). They’ve provided several call-to-action, appealing color composition matching their brand and photos to encourage people to make a purchase. Also, they’ve been able to hit that soft corner by allowing people to customize their own bar and the ability to buy Cadbury gifts. They’ve been able to connect with potential job applicants with the use of career page. They’ve also not left behind people with certain disability behind with compliance with standards of creating an accessible website. In addition to all those, the business had added FAQ pages such that general questions can be answered by reading that.
Cadbury appears to have kept the communication with its visitors in focus with providing an opportunity to them to contact them also on their free phone number with numbers dedicated for different purposes such that people don’t get startled in the process. This also ensures that their employees aren’t left hanging with a question they’re not familiar with. Cadbury also uses a website based contact form where they collect all the details and get back to it within 3-7 business days as per the information they sent during the process. Cadbury also collect the email address of its user if they sign up for it which they use to email you at times about exciting news, offers, and competitions from Cadbury. I also found that they provide a tracking system for the products order which is really convenient.
Cadbury also tried to connect other platforms of theirs like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram from their website with links to these platforms both in header and footer section of the website. While looking at their Facebook page, they had an impressive response time of one day, which is good for the business of that scale with so many customers flooding their inbox. They were also equally active and engaged with the customers in all of these platforms. While no link to their YouTube channel was to be found in the website but looking at it for the frequency at which they create ads, I found that they make ads in multiple languages while focusing each ad to a certain zone.
The process of strengths and weakness of both internal and external communication channels is called as communication audit. It is also a method through which they can understand the practices used in past, know about the knowledge about the product from the target market, how good or bad the current communication methods used are working and what can be the future communication methods that can be used (Greenbaum, 1974). With the communication audit, the company can evaluate their goals, efficiency, reach and satisfaction of the communication strategy in place while also understanding about them better (Barnett, Hamlin & Danowski, 1982).
While conducting an informal communication audit of Cadbury, lots of inconsistencies and loopholes could be discovered. With their Facebook-based support taking a day or more to respond back with a simple question detailing about what they need to further process the request is something people don’t like. They could have rather used automated system requesting people to send those details soon anyone sends the message. In turn, they can create a chat system in their own website separating it as per the unit such that the requests are directed to the right unit only. They don’t seem to have integrated marketing communication which means that they don’t use the same message on all the communication channels. Looking at their New Zealand and Australia based website, they show a completely different picture of Cadbury. The consistency and promise factor is missing. With regard to videos being missing in the website, they could have embedded a YouTube promotion of theirs or a product intro or even a welcome message to the website such that they do have some voice added in addition to the graphics and text that are there in the website. So, there are areas which need and could be improved that are discovered with the informal communication audit.
References
Barnett, G., Hamlin, D., & Danowski, J. (1982). The Use of Fractionation Scales for Communication Audits. Annals Of The International Communication Association , 5 (1), 455-471.
Greenbaum, H. (1974). The Audit of Organizational Communication. Academy Of Management Journal , 17 (4), 739-754.
Pace, R., & Faules, D. (1989). Organizational communication (3rd ed.). Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall.
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For the discussion question, I choose Cadbury is a multinational confectionery brand with its base in the United Kingdom. I visited their UK website as in cadbury.co.uk/ to understand about the forms of communication they use in their website. In addition to that, they’ve several other websites tagged to geolocation such that they can provide customized service to people of the set region.
While exploring the website, I found multiple forms of communication that were used in the website like the inclusion of cookies, and other data which they use to send internet ads in Google, Facebook and other platforms. A business should be able to communicate with all the stakeholder with the use of the website as that is something like a face of the organization to the world in the current trend which they’ve been able to do to most of the extent (Pace & Faules, 1989). They’ve provided several call-to-action, appealing color composition matching their brand and photos to encourage people to make a purchase. Also, they’ve been able to hit that soft corner by allowing people to customize their own bar and the ability to buy Cadbury gifts. They’ve been able to connect with potential job applicants with the use of career page. They’ve also not left behind people with certain disability behind with compliance with standards of creating an accessible website. In addition to all those, the business had added FAQ pages such that general questions can be answered by reading that.
Cadbury appears to have kept the communication with its visitors in focus with providing an opportunity to them to contact them also on their free phone number with numbers dedicated for different purposes such that people don’t get startled in the process. This also ensures that their employees aren’t left hanging with a question they’re not familiar with. Cadbury also uses a website based contact form where they collect all the details and get back to it within 3-7 business days as per the information they sent during the process. Cadbury also collect the email address of its user if they sign up for it which they use to email you at times about exciting news, offers, and competitions from Cadbury. I also found that they provide a tracking system for the products order which is really convenient.
Cadbury also tried to connect other platforms of theirs like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram from their website with links to these platforms both in header and footer section of the website. While looking at their Facebook page, they had an impressive response time of one day, which is good for the business of that scale with so many customers flooding their inbox. They were also equally active and engaged with the customers in all of these platforms. While no link to their YouTube channel was to be found in the website but looking at it for the frequency at which they create ads, I found that they make ads in multiple languages while focusing each ad to a certain zone.
The process of strengths and weakness of both internal and external communication channels is called as communication audit. It is also a method through which they can understand the practices used in past, know about the knowledge about the product from the target market, how good or bad the current communication methods used are working and what can be the future communication methods that can be used (Greenbaum, 1974). With the communication audit, the company can evaluate their goals, efficiency, reach and satisfaction of the communication strategy in place while also understanding about them better (Barnett, Hamlin & Danowski, 1982).
While conducting an informal communication audit of Cadbury, lots of inconsistencies and loopholes could be discovered. With their Facebook-based support taking a day or more to respond back with a simple question detailing about what they need to further process the request is something people don’t like. They could have rather used automated system requesting people to send those details soon anyone sends the message. In turn, they can create a chat system in their own website separating it as per the unit such that the requests are directed to the right unit only. They don’t seem to have integrated marketing communication which means that they don’t use the same message on all the communication channels. Looking at their New Zealand and Australia based website, they show a completely different picture of Cadbury. The consistency and promise factor is missing. With regard to videos being missing in the website, they could have embedded a YouTube promotion of theirs or a product intro or even a welcome message to the website such that they do have some voice added in addition to the graphics and text that are there in the website. So, there are areas which need and could be improved that are discovered with the informal communication audit.
References
Barnett, G., Hamlin, D., & Danowski, J. (1982). The Use of Fractionation Scales for Communication Audits. Annals Of The International Communication Association , 5 (1), 455-471.
Greenbaum, H. (1974). The Audit of Organizational Communication. Academy Of Management Journal , 17 (4), 739-754.
Pace, R., & Faules, D. (1989). Organizational communication (3rd ed.). Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall.