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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Communication Audit

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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Communication Audit

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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Communication Audit

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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Communication Audit

Facebook

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.

Twitter

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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Communication Audit

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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Communication Audit

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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Communication Audit

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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Communication Audit

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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Communication Audit

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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