Crisis Case Study Presentation

9

Communication Assessment Project (CAP)

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Communication Assessment Project (CAP)

Communication Vehicle or Campaign and Communication and Business objectives

The Communication Vehicle or Campaign

The origin of Total Company dates back to the creation of the "French Petroleum Company.” The primary goal of the company is to become a reliable energy major. From this phrase, they meant to provide affordable, clean and dependable energy. The company’s communication vehicle or campaigns are external and aiming at the investors and potential clients. The news media are latest news about the company, press releases, including Total’s special features (Total.com, n.d.). Besides, they have a media library that comprises of downloaded and online media. In the same media department, there are calendars, autobiographies, publications, social media platforms and press contacts. All these essentials under the media department aim at providing the company’s information to the stakeholders, the customers and the investors.

Communication Vehicle for Investors and Customers

Communication Objective 1: Press release

In the press release unit, the company makes available information regarding their financial achievements, its progress in the sea including realizing a new source of oil, and noticing a gas in Egypt. Moreover, their developments in merging with other organizations to deliver quality oil to various nations, and sell refineries such as Lindsey. The press releases are based on the interests of the shareholders and the clients (Total.com, n.d.). The interest of the shareholders will be investing on the project started by Total because of their credibility and the rate of success.

Figure 1: This is a segment of Press release shows information relevant to the company’s performance, it shares values and assets. A similar kind of information related to the company’s financial situation is present in the remaining press releases.

Communication objective 2: Our special features.

Special features target the shareholders. In this unit, Total Company has given information regarding their company, and their practices in the shareholders’ webzine which is the magazine released by the company on a monthly basis. The company shows what they have done during the month and their success. For example, in May 2020, there was an online investors’ fair, observation of Total investors’ day and publication of the first 2020 interim report. In addition, there was shareholders’ meeting in Clermont Ferrand and Annecy (France) (Total.com, n.d.). From the kind of news published in this units, it is evident that they aim at generally giving information to their investors and shareholders. The magazine seem to serve a medium of improving the company’s sales and revenue.

Figure 2: It is observable that the calendar provides an overview of the events that happened in a month, and below is the detailed information present relevant to the events that happened in the month of May 2020.

The monthly magazines are shared among the clients and followers on the online media platforms. This indicates that the company provides information about their progress. For example, the content they post on their social media sites are user interactive. They post questions on Twitter, share an updated information about how the employees are working in poor climatic conditions, among others (Total.com, n.d.). Therefore, the primary goal of the periodicals including sharing of information are significant to the company’s main objective to ensure they build a strong connection with its clients. According to Paine (2011), good relations with customers are the fundamentals of gaining maximum profit , if there are no good customers relations, the company may likely count losses after a short duration.

Audience Analysis

Investors

Investors are people or organizations that allocate their revenue in another organization with the anticipation of getting profits in future. Total company has provided a comprehensive information under the section of investors that can be valuable to them. The information that attract investors provide on the website includes; it is the World’s number two liquefied natural gas operator, invests in low carbon electricity about $1.5-2.0 billion, produces about 3 million barrels equivalent to oil daily and top ten worldwide petroleum manufacturers and refiners. The company’s action plan states that the challenges that they have experienced in the year including the resiliency they have shown. Moreover, they have provided information regarding delivery, HSE, cash and their operational costs. Faruque, Khatun & Rahman (2016) states that what influences private investors are long-term profits while organizational investors are motivated to decrease financial risks. Therefore, information the company providers is adequate for investors to decide whether they need to invest in Total company or not.

Employees

On the Total company Twitter accounts, the company has provided information about the employees. These information include; the safety of the workers, they give information that their employees are working in poor working conditions using complete safety equipment, hence attracting more consideration and assessment form the clients and followers on their work (Dineva, Breitsohl & Garrod, 2017). Besides, the general population get to know through online platforms such as websites and social media sites regarding the products and strategies of the company.

Shareholders

Like the investors tab, the company has provided the information relevant to the shareholders. The number of shares are owned by organizational investors and private shareholders including geographical breakdown. Additionally, they have provided the information about the shareholders using the type and location.

Figure 3: Shows the investors tab

Benchmarks

Internal Benchmark

Internal benchmarking is a process where companies analyze their business and operations to identify the best approach to complete a job in a more efficient way. The aim of the internal benchmarking is to realize the best activities they can employ to complete a particular task with the least efforts and resources. The internal benchmark set by the organization to be achieved by the year 2050 should be based on additional followers and loyal clients.

According to Tapkı (2020), loyal customers will defend their companies in crises on in case of any scandal that can badly affect the organization. Loyal clients are significant foe any company so that they can reflect the country’s positive aspects, and influence the people around them. These clients are regarded as company’s assets, hence, it is essential to create a string and positive relations with them (Paine, 2011).This can only be improved by creating strong communication media. The current state of communication media is weak while evaluating various social media platforms (Tapkı, 2020). The assessments and outcomes indicate that YouTube and Instagram are the company’s social media platforms which are viewed more than Facebook. Apparently, this happens as a result of limited interaction between the company and other platforms. Therefore, the organization should follow trends such as posing questions, posting images, videos and interactive materials that inform the customers more concerning their innovative technologies and products. Such activities will increase the interest of customers in the products of the company; they will also purchase theme due to consistent marketing.

External Benchmark

External benchmarking happens when a company compares it performances with other likeminded organizations. Total has a higher number of employees. However, the valuation of Total Company is less than that of Shell Company which is 102.5b and 118.4b respectively. Also, Total’s use of social media platforms is better compared to organizations like Shell. Nonetheless, the company should improve its number of followers because Shell has more followers on social media including more interactive advertisements. To attain its external benchmark, Total Company should consider Shell as its major competitors in the industry in terms of relationship and communication processes with the clients, investors and shareholders.

Key Performance Indicators

The first objective: Increase awareness about the projects and policies of the company among the investors, customers, and stakeholders through twitter.

	Key Performance Indicators	Measurement Tools
Output Key Performance Indicators	Utilization of the press release including monthly magazines by investors, potential clients and stakeholders	Survey
Attitudinal	Awareness of initiatives or developments that the company has taken to concerning the customers and the general population	Survey
Behavioral	a) Increase in the rate of clicking on the press release. b) Most clicked information. c) Most clicked news. d) The rate of clicking the items under the media section.	Mail Chimp Native reporting Tool

Objective 2: Increase communication with customers across the globe through Instagram Twitter and Facebook.

	Key Performance Indicators	Measurement Tools
Output Key Performance Indicators	Improve the number of followers on social media accounts such as Twitter.	Estimating the number of followers and retweet numbers can be evaluated using socialbakers.com
Attitudinal	Create awareness about new products and services.	Survey
Behavioral	Comments or retweets on the posts by the social media segment in the organization.	Analysis of the content commented on social media posts.

Objective 3: Increasing the visibility of the brand against the competitor.

In Total company’s case, Shell is regarded as the competitor since their strategy of communication is five times better than Total. According to Faruque et al., (2016), one approach would be to increase visibility and get brand name out more prominently compared to the competitor. This approach might be useful in improving the visibility of the brand.

	Key Performance Indicators	Measurement Tools
Output Key Performance Indicators	Increase the brand name’s visibility against competitors. They should use hashtag #Total when making new Tweets. Development of questions, campaigns including polls using the hashtag.	Comparing followers and interaction can be evaluated from socialbakers.com.
Attitudinal	Increased interaction on social media platforms with strong marketing strategies.	Survey
Behavioral	Individuals will love Total than Shell	Socialbakers.com elements will allow the management to conduct an evaluation about likes between the two organizations on various social media sites.

Measurement Tools and Key Data

To scrutinize all these key metrics the measurement tool that this project will develop will be called Total Analysis.

The number of clicks on the Website

The tool contain three key variables identify the number of clicks on the website. The number of those who visit the website will be declared on the last section of the website so that new client can realize the influence the organization has globally. Moreover, the number of clicks in the media section which is further classified into three units will be evaluated. The content users who are more interested will be noticed (Dineva et al., 2017). For example, those who access the monthly magazines more or those who access press release more or daily. Besides, social media links that are concentrating towards the organization’s website can realize how much traffic is coming from the social media sites (Paine, 2011). An example is when the company has updated its status regarding technology like link of the website shared on Twitter link and safety of workers where they have come up with helmets.

Number of Likes on Social Media Platforms

Since the company is available on various social media sites. The number of retweets, likes and comments will indicate which content is more liked by the followers. It is evident that individuals will appraise the strategy of the organization to ensure that the workers are safe, shows concerns in the news where the company posts guess questions (Dineva et al., 2017). Furthermore, the customers’ interests can be realized by the number of retweets, likes and connections with the posts can tell which kind of posts has influenced the target audience. In this approach, the organization will get to be informed regarding the external audience, their habits including attitudes towards the policies of the company, its behaviors and objectives.

Survey

By starting the question and answer section or developing a short poll on their social media platforms. Also, they can create a survey and share it through email to the target customers, so that the organization can understand the habits and attitudes of their clients (Paine, 2011). The company can understand what the clients expect from them, the kind of products and services they are interested in plus their satisfaction with such products or services the company offers ate that moment.

Analysis and Recommendations

Social media platforms interaction channels that has developed great attention from both individuals and organizations interaction on the website (Paine, 2011). These platforms include Twitter, You Tube, Instagram, and Facebook and have initiated a huge global e-learning, e-business, e-management and motivation on interaction channels with the end customers. The traditional communication media were not providing direct communication with the end clients. According to Faruque et al. (2016), social media sites are modifying the traditional marketing strategies. They changed how traditional brand communication was happening. Previously, brand marketing managers responsible for regulating the marketing campaigns now the end user has changed the approach to marketing where the likes and dislikes are regarded essential compared to other factors. A study by Dineva et al. (2017), stated that social media platforms enabled organizations and brands to offer rapid responses to customers about their issues, improved their customer services and considered their complaints. It also influences the process of rapid content sharing and provides quick modifications in communication with end customers. Communication through social media is considered fast, viral, extensive and less costly in terms of cost sharing.

Through evaluation of the approaches and data collected from studies and scrutiny of the organization’s website, it is clear that the number of followers the organization has is higher than other companies except for Shell Company where they are five-times less. The company should improve its interaction approaches, and marketing strategies so that individuals get to know the products and services of the company including their objectives (Faruque et al., 2016). When the followers are few, there will be limited tweets hence low spread of the information. It is critical that the company develops a plan to increase the influence on social media so that they can get other customers in future.

There are several nations where products are famous like in Shell. Therefore, the best competitor for Total Company is Shell Company. Several data and metrics indicates that Shell is doing better than Total in terms of interaction with the external audience. The Key Performance Indicators measurement will allow the organization to create better internal as well as external benchmarks. Based on this data, it is assessed that the organization’s external audience requires more attention, and the media campaigns, or the press releases they run are not reaching the maximum individuals (Faruque et al., 2016). Besides, the company should emphasize on its workers so that a safe and positive environment can be created for the company to increase the employees’ job satisfaction. According to Santouridis et al. (2017), a better customer relationship will improve brand loyalty. Therefore, improved relationship between customers and the company can lead to great results.

References

Dineva, D. P., Breitsohl, J. C., & Garrod, B. (2017). Corporate conflict management on social media brand fan pages. Journal of Marketing Management, 33(9-10), 679-698. https://doi.org/10.1080/0267257X.2017.1329225

Faruque, S. A., Khatun, M. A., & Rahman, M. S. (2016). Modelling direct marketing campaign on social networks. International Journal of Business Information Systems, 22(4), 422-435. https://doi.org/10.1504/IJBIS.2016.077836

Paine, K. D. (2011). Measure what matters: Online tools for understanding customers, social media, engagement, and key relationships. John Wiley & Sons.

Santouridis, I., & Veraki, A. (2017). Customer relationship management and customer satisfaction: the mediating role of relationship quality. Total Quality Management & Business Excellence, 28(9-10), 1122-1133. https://doi.org/10.1080/14783363.2017.1303889

Tapkı, İ. G. (2020). Benchmarking Competitive Market Environment Using Market-Based Database. In Strategic Priorities in Competitive Environments (pp. 85-98).   https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-45023-6_5

Total.com (n.d.). Total global Homepage - Oil, natural gas and low-carbon energies | https://www.total.com/

Appendices

Appendix I: A segment of press release

Appendix II: A calendar providing an overview of the events that happened in a month

Appendix III: Webpage showing the investors’ tab