Communication Audit: Kwantlen Polytechnic University€¦ · Web viewIn order for Kwantlen to...
Transcript of Communication Audit: Kwantlen Polytechnic University€¦ · Web viewIn order for Kwantlen to...
Running Head: Communication Audit
Communication Audit: Kwantlen Polytechnic University
Justin Wong Jailum Bhandar Warren Wong
Horace Ng
MRKT3211
April 9, 2013
Communication Audit
Table of Contents
Goals..............................................................................................................................................2
Objectives...................................................................................................................................... 2
Identification of Audiences............................................................................................................3
Relationships................................................................................................................................. 3
Integrated Communication Strategy..............................................................................................4
Strategic Alignment and Positioning.............................................................................................5
Interaction feedback and service response.....................................................................................6
Customization and personalization................................................................................................6
Blocking Chart...............................................................................................................................6
Paid Media.....................................................................................................................................7
Owned media.................................................................................................................................8
Website...................................................................................................................................... 8
Facebook....................................................................................................................................9
Twitter....................................................................................................................................... 9
YouTube....................................................................................................................................9
Inconsistency of Social Media.................................................................................................10
Other Various Owned Media...................................................................................................10
Earned Media...............................................................................................................................11
Kwantlen’s Logo......................................................................................................................... 12
Issue Management....................................................................................................................... 13
Contingency Plan.........................................................................................................................14
Recommendation.........................................................................................................................14
Exhibits........................................................................................................................................17
WORKS CITED.............................................................................................................................. 21
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Communication Audit
Goals
Ever since Kwantlen became a University in 2008 (Kwantlen, n.d.), Kwantlen’s goal has
been to solidify its status as being a university and to ensure Kwantlen is known as a university.
However, many people still don’t know that Kwantlen is a university. In order to promote
Kwantlen as a university, Kwantlen needs to increase brand awareness. Kwantlen plans to
accomplish this by promoting the programs it offers and the success students have after attending
Kwantlen. For example, Kwantlen uses student achievements for promotional purposes.
Although Kwantlen wants be to be known as a university, it is not aiming to be compared
to The University of British Columbia or Simon Fraser University. Kwantlen is a smaller
educational institution that serves a different purpose. Kwantlen markets itself as being a local
university that has many campuses around the lower mainland, which are easily accessible for
students. Kwantlen also differentiates itself by having much smaller class sizes than UBC and
SFU which offers students a better learning environment.
Objectives
In order for Kwantlen to meet its goal in being recognized as a university, one of their
objectives is to have 95% of their students to clearly understand what it means to be a
polytechnic university by the end of 2014. As students are a major force in promoting the school
as they share their experience at Kwantlen and talk about where and what they studied, it is
important that they communicate to others what it means to be a polytechnic university. If the
current students don’t understand what that is, they will be communicating a mixed message on
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their own ideas of what Kwantlen’s image portrays to them; and not the image that Kwantlen
wants its students to communicate.
Identification of Audiences
According to our interview with Joanne Saunders, their main audience consists of
students, employees, and potential students. She was able to inform us that their primary target
audiences are students between the ages of 17 to 25. Their secondary audience consists of
parents who have children attending the school or who plan to go to Kwantlen as well as mature
students, which are students who plan to go back to school.
She was unable to give any further information on any other audiences that Kwantlen may have
such as shareholders, government employees, suppliers or any outsourced companies that they
employ.
Relationships
During the meeting with Joanne, she mentioned that marketing efforts are generally
towards their target audiences, which are students between 17 to 25 years old. She also
mentioned “Suppliers, Employees, Government and Media are not target audiences in our
marketing efforts. Some of these people may fall into the categories of parents and mature
students though.” She then goes on to mentioning “As for media, we target them with
information to promote the University but they are not a target audience for our marketing
efforts.” Based on Joanne’s response, there is no long term customer relationship management
(CRM) plan implemented for these individuals. Kwantlen promotes to these individuals but has
not looked into building a long-term relationship with them. Relationship is an important aspect
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for Kwantlen as they are a public institution. Relationship would play a major role in many
aspects for Kwantlen. It could in the long run benefit Kwantlen financially or give Kwantlen a
competitive edge over other public institutions.
Integrated Communication Strategy
The plan for Kwantlen’s integrated communication strategy is to make all aspects of its
marketing communication to work together and portray the same image. This is especially
important with what has happened within the past couple of years as Kwantlen began rebranding
its image. Its previous strategy no longer communicates the same message, as its current strategy
because in the past they were known as a college where as now they are labeled as a
“Polytechnic University”. In order for Kwantlen to have an integrated communication strategy,
all marketing proposals have to go through Joanne Saunders, the head of the Marketing and
Communications department, as she determines if the projects fits into their communication
strategy. This is how she is able to ensure that all advertising, sales promotion, public relations,
and direct marketing work together as a unified force, instead of each working on its own.
As for controlling what other people communicate through social media, she is not able
to direct them to follow the same procedures that she currently uses for Kwantlen’s
communication strategy. For example, if a student or a teacher has a website or a social media
account that showcases Kwantlen and communicates a totally different image compared to
Kwantlen’s current strategy, Joanne has no control over this and is not able to integrate it into its
communication strategy.
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Strategic Alignment and Positioning
Kwantlen has positioned itself as a mid-level institution. There are other universities that
are given more prestige, and are perceived to give a better education such as Simon Fraser
University and University of British Columbia. These universities may give a better education
but this comes along with higher tuition fees. Kwantlen offers a wide variety of programs that
extend to trade which most of these prestige universities do not. Also Kwantlen is conveniently
located throughout the Lower Mainland for easy accessibility for students. Kwantlen also offers
small class sizes, and an integrated education system that involves first-hand experience and not
just theory. This is carried out by majority of the classes having an applied component where
students have to utilize the theory, and most of the time interact with the community.
Internal Communication
For internal communication with staff, Kwantlen communicates electronically and with
print. Electronic tools include e-mail, telephone, video, and electronic newsletters. Print based
communication consists of newsletters, posters, and memos. There aren’t any specific
regulations for internal communication except that staff members are expected to have their
signatures at the end of their e-mail. An example of a signature can be seen in exhibit 3
For internal communication with students, Kwantlen uses the LED monitors around the
campuses, e-mail, and bulletin boards. The LED monitors and bulletin boards are generally used
to communicate about events and programs while e-mail is for a two-way communication
between professors and students.
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Interaction feedback and service response
Currently, interaction with students and other individuals is done through the use of email
and social media platforms. The interaction on the social media platform for Kwantlen is through
Twitter 1and Facebook2. According to Joanne, her department staff manages the social media
platforms and deals with questions and provides feedback on these social media platforms. Their
Twitter page is driving more on interaction between KPU and students then Facebook even
though both platforms are following a push strategy for marketing.
Customization and personalization
There is very limited customization and personalization in terms of Kwantlens current
communication plan. The emails are standardized in terms of sign off required at the end of each
email. Refer to exhibit 3 for an example that Joanne has provided us for Kwantlens sign off for
emails. Exhibit 4 and 5 is an email that is standardized with no personalization that is sent to the
Kwantlen students. It does not have a personalized name reference to the individual and does not
meet the required sign off that the emails should entail.
Blocking Chart
As quoted from Joanne “I do not have one blocking chart for the entire university
marketing plans. We have one for each department and various others for other mediums. Sorry,
but I cannot provide such.” Currently there are blocking charts for each separate department but
no full combined blocking chart listing all the different days which department will be doing
1 https://twitter.com/kwantlenu2 https://www.facebook.com/kwantlenU
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certain advertising strategies. A foreseen issue is duplicated advertisements, since each
department has their own block charts.
Paid Media
As quoted from Joanne “This past year, we did TV, Radio, print, and social media
advertising” which includes all the different forms of the paid media for Kwantlen. Referring to
exhibit 1 and exhibit 2, you can see the example of the print media that Kwantlen has partaken.
These posters and others are posted around the various campuses to promote Kwantlen and their
diverse programs available for students. For first and second year students who are still trying to
decide on their program, these print media informs them about different bachelors and diplomas
in which Kwantlen offers. Aside from just having print media available for students, they have
radio and television advertisements. However, these two forms of traditional media have not
been very effective. Below is a graph portraying the results of a survey conducted on 20 random
students around the Kwantlen Campus about Kwantlen’s Paid Media.
.
Radio Televsion Both Television and Radio
None0
2
4
6
8
10
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Kwantlen Paid Media Survey
Number of Students (20 Surveyed)
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The above result shows that 11 students have heard or know about Kwantlen’s
advertisements on the radio, 3 have seen or knows about Kwantlen’s TV advertisements, and 2
students have seen and heard about Kwantlens radio and television advertisements while the
remaining 8 have no knowledge of either advertisements. The result of the survey portrays how
ineffective Kwantlens current marketing plan is.
Owned media
Website
Kwantlen has a complex corporate website with many pages to fulfill the visitor’s needs.
It does have easy navigation for new users with a convenient header that segments the users by
faculty and staff, current students, or future students amongst others. “Kwantlen.ca has a three-
month global Alexa traffic rank of 96,177, and visitors to the site spend approximately 24
seconds on each page view and a total of six minutes on the site during each visit. About 62% of
the site's visitors are in Canada, where it has attained a traffic rank of 2,892. The site has a
bounce rate of about 23% (i.e., 23% of visits consist of only one pageview). Visitors to
Kwantlen.ca view an average of 8.8 unique pages per day and 26.89% of visitors came from
google.ca or google.com”. At times the website can be a bit repetitive, as the home page has
multiple links to the program and news pages. Also the slogan that is used on the Kwantlen
Twitter and Facebook page “Inspire Transform Become Succeed” is not used anywhere on the
website.. On Kwantlen’s website, viewers can also read the presidents blog. He talks about
various topics that are not exactly pertaining to education, but more general thoughts that occur
to him. (Alexa Internet, Inc, 2013)
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Kwantlen’s Facebook page has 49,671 likes and only 35 people talking about the
institution. Also, the Kwantlen Richmond campus has its own page, which has accumulated 414
likes and 4,424 people saying that they were there. Additionally, there are Facebook pages for
individual departments at Kwantlen such as business, psychology, arts, and science to name a
few. The most successful page of the school is the business page, which consists of 651 likes,
and 130 people saying that they were there. The rest of the pages have a couple hundred likes,
with posts that are few and far between. The page is has new posts almost everyday to stay
relevant and connected to the community.
Kwantlen has a Twitter account under the name KwantlenU. The page has 2,476
followers and has 1,481 tweets. Similar to Facebook, there are individual pages for many
departments and majors that Kwantlen offers. Each of these pages has roughly 100 followers or
less with sparse random tweets. The KwantlenU page has a Klout score of 56, which is a
measure of how influential a page is. This is not a bad score, but it could be higher. The
University of the Fraser Valley has the same Klout score, and Simon Fraser University has a
score of 70. The Kwantlen page is updated numerous times a day with new tweets and engaging
posts.
YouTube
Kwantlen created a YouTube channel in August of 2008, and has since posted 298
videos, with a combined 62,917 views and 76 subscribers. There are a few videos with roughly a
thousand views each, the rest of the videos only have a few hundred views each. The account is
updated roughly once every one to two months with a few new videos at a time. Generally these
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videos have to do with awards received by students, speeches given, or testimonials about a
program. This channel does a good job of keeping relatively up to date, and satisfying very niche
viewers, but it could also look into producing videos that would engage a larger audience,
instead of videos for individual conferences or programs.
Inconsistency of Social Media
Between Kwantlen’s Facebook and Twitter accounts, there are quite a few discrepancies
that should be more consistent. To start off, they use two different logos as their picture for their
accounts. There are many different variations of the Kwantlen logo that can be used. but why not
try to use the same one as much as possible. Next, the Twitter page is called KwantlenU while
the Facebook and YouTube pages are called Kwantlen Polytechnic University. This facilitates
the problem that Kwantlen is having about branding; which is there are so many different names
for Kwantlen. One needs to be chosen and the rest should fall by the wayside. When tweeting,
Kwantlen refers to itself as Kwantlen, KPU, or occasionally Kwantlen Polytechnic University
but never by the account name, which is KwantlenU. Also, the two descriptions given on the
social media sites are not the same, and one says the location is in Vancouver while the other
says the location is in Surrey. The background of the Twitter page is nicely customized with the
Kwantlen colours, whereas the Facebook page is not. Furthermore, the sub-section pages
(Kwantlen business, psychology, etc.) have different logos as their pictures, and many of these
logos are outdated.
Other Various Owned Media
Kwantlen has a shuttle bus that commutes from one campus to another transporting
students. The bus is all white and branded with the Kwanlten logo on the front and sides. The bus
was mention in the Langley Advance newspaper when it was first introduced in August of 2011.
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Communication Audit
All of Kwantlen staff have been given business cards that have the Kwantlen logo on them, the
website, and personal information about the individual. All of Kwantlen campuses display
Kwantlen’s Eagle Eye system in all of the buildings. This is a network displayed on T.Vs to
inform students about current and upcoming events and news. Additionally, there are signs at all
campuses out front to identify Kwantlen; these signs consist of the Kwantlen logo and name.
Earned Media
Majority of Kwantlen’s earned media comes from students and professors posting or
tweeting about it, with the most popular hash tag being #KPU. These tweets are generally about
on-campus activities, or just random thoughts involving Kwantlen. The posts and tweets have a
sentiment ratio of 3:1(Social Mention, 2013), this means that for every negative comment there
are three positive ones, which is pretty good. Additionally, the reach is 32% (Social Mention,
2013), which means that there is a lot of different authors that mention Kwantlen on social
media. There are review sites, the most popular of which is studentsreview.com. This page
however is outdated as it states Kwantlen is a university college and rates it as a C+ (Student
Review, 2013). There are other sites such as ratemyprofessor.com that does not necessarily
review Kwantlen as an institution, but the professors individually. The Langley Times has posted
quite a few articles based on achievements by Kwantlen, and Kwantlen students. The most recent
of which is about the new Dean of science and horticulture. Also, on sportscanada.tv there are
posts about Kwantlen athletics. Finally, there is The Runner, this is a newspaper operated by
students and the Kwantlen Student Association. Kwantlen does not own the newspaper but it
does regularly discuss issues and topics pertaining to Kwantlen.
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Kwantlen’s Logo
Kwantlen’s logo has been designed to be able to be flexible with meeting various
applications and is regulated by Kwantlen’s Graphic Standards. Kwantlen’s logo is protected
under the Canadian Trademarks Act and the use of the logo on any document, web page, poster,
or other applications cannot be used without permission from the Marketing and Communication
department at Kwantlen (Kwantlen Polytechnic University Graphic Standards, PDF e-mail from
Joanne Sauders, April 7, 2013). Refer to exhibit 6 for Kwantlen’s Graphic Standards on the
primary and secondary logo.
The following visual are other Kwantlen Logos that can be used from Kwantlen’s
Graphic Standards:
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Issue Management
In order to reduce any issues with any ads or marketing campaigns, all proposals have to
go through Kwantlen’s Marketing and Communication department and also has to be approved
by Joanne Sauders, the Director of Communication and Marketing. If any issue arises with an ad
Kwantlen is developing for another department, the Marketing and Communication department
would review the ad with the person requesting the ad and go through it to determine what might
have gone wrong and correct it immediately.
For any emergency management issue, the Marketing and Communication department is
responsible for communicating the information to the students and the internal and external
audiences. Kwantlen has an Emergency Management Department that handles the step-by-step
process for all other emergency procedures.
An example of emergency management was the pipe bomb scare at Kwantlen’s Surrey
campus on September 17, 2012. An object that resembled a pipe bomb was spotted in the
parking lot, which led to two buildings being evacuated. During the crisis, the Marketing and
Communication department kept everyone calm and let them know that the RCMP and Fire
Department were on their way. The Communications and Marketing Department also informed
the media that anything that can be done is being done. When the bomb squad arrived on the
scene, they realized it was just an empty pipe. After the incident, Kwantlen communicated to the
media that everything was okay and informed them of the details (CTV British Columbia, 2012).
Contingency Plan
Kwantlen does not have any contingency plans until an issue arises and adjusts
according. This is not efficient because the purpose of a contingency plan is for an organization
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to respond coherently to an unplanned event. Contingency plans can also be used as a plan “B” if
the expected result of an event fails to happen (Rouse, M., 2008). By not having any contingency
plans, Kwantlen will be unprepared for any unexpected events. This can lead to harming the
brand’s image and the organizations reliability.
Recommendation
The following are some long term and short-term recommendation that we have concluded
based on our analysis that Kwantlen should consider:
Creating a blocking chart with all faculties combined (short-term)
o With a combined block chart, duplication of promotional activities could be
prevented. The prevention could potentially lead to a decrease in advertisement
costs for Kwantlen if certain activities have been duplicated in the past.
Creating a pull strategy instead of a push for social media platforms (short/long term)
o Instead of relying a push marketing strategy, focus on a pull strategy. Currently
Kwantlen is trying to build brand awareness and with a push strategy it will be
effective to initially gain awareness but to further drive these efforts, a pull
strategy must be implemented. Word of mouth is more effective in the current age
then advertisements itself, with a pull strategy, individuals would be personally
promoting Kwantlen to other people leading to a more effective advertisement.
The pull strategy is more of a long term goal in which Kwantlen should consider
if they were going to further build upon their brand.
Creating more personalized emails to students (short term)
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o Having a template of the email and having the automated system where the name
for the email is actually the students name instead of “students” or having no
reference to the recipient at all. An example of how easily this task can be
completed can be seen here3.
Consider using nicheworking for internal communication instead of email (long term)
o Nicheworking is an internal social media platform that organizations could use
and implement. Nicheworking is secure and builds a collaboration-based network
for the company. Nicheworking can remove the use of email and can drive more
between departments then a conventional email as this relates more to the current
age of web 2.0.
Stricter regulation in terms of sign offs on emails even if the emails are standardized and
impersonal (short/long term)
o As mentioned before, Kwantlen currently has rules and regulations regarding sign
off for emails but in exhibit 4 and exhibit 5, you can see these regulations are not
followed. The Marketing and Communication department should be strict and
make sure all emails follow these regulations. With emails having different
version of sign off, it could lead to an image that Kwantlen has no unison.
Creating a contingency plan (long term)
o Firstly, Kwantlen should establish a good-will bank account. Establishing
contacts with the media, the community, and third-party experts can do this. Also,
Kwantlen should establish a reputation of being competent, committed, caring, 3 http://kb.mailchimp.com/article/getting-started-with-merge-tags
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open, and honest. By having a good-will bank account, Kwantlen will already
have a good reputation in case of any crisis, and as well as have a relationship
with external sources that can help with the situation. Secondly, Kwantlen should
form guidelines for communicating with different audiences. This would help
during a crisis because messages can be more easily and quickly tailored towards
specific audiences as situations arise.
Create a social media policy
o This policy should include having one picture to display across all platforms at the profile
or identifying picture. Next, the name of the profile or page should be the same on all
various platforms. Also, when posting or tweeting Kwantlen should be referred to as
Kwantlen Polytechnic University or KPU so that the message is always consistently
telling the viewer that Kwantlen is a University.
Remove smaller social media
o All of the minor Facebook and Twitter pages, for example Kwantlen Criminology which
has 77 followers and 147 tweets should be removed. These pages are not being
effectively run, and have a very small fan base who should just follow the general
Kwantlen account
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Exhibits
Exhibit 1: Kwantlen’s Print Media Sample
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Exhibit 2: Kwantlen’s Surrey Feature
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Exhibit 3: Kwantlen Sign Off On Email
Exhibit 4: Kwantlen Example Email
Exhibit 5: Kwantlen Example Email 2
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Exhibit 6: Kwantlen’s Graphic Standards on the Primary and Secondary Logo
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WORKS CITED
Alexa Internet, Inc. (2013). Kwantlen.ca. Retrieved 04 9, 2013, from Alexa:
http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/kwantlen.ca#
CTV British Columbia, (2012). Pipe Bomb Scare Causes Kwantlen Evacuations. Retrieved on
April 7 from http://bc.ctvnews.ca/pipe-bomb-scare-causes-kwantlen-evacuations-
1.959456
Kwantlen (n.d.). Kwantlen’s Timeline of Success. Retrieved on April 4 from
http://www.kwantlen.ca/timeline.html
Rouse, M., (2008). Definition: Contingency Plan. Retrieved on April 7 from
http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/contingency-plan
Social Mention. (2013). Kwantlen. Retrieved 04 09, 2013, from Social Mention:
http://socialmention.com/search?q=kwantlen&t=all&btnG=Search
Student Review. (2013). Kwantlen. Retrieved 04 09, 2013, from Student Review:
http://www.studentsreview.com/Canada/Kwantlen_University_College.html
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