Topic
Volkswagen’s Marketing Communication following the Emission Scandal
Instructions
According to Pradnya Joshi and Danny Hakim, writing for The New York Times on February 26 2016: “For years, Volkswagen successfully communicated an image of itself to the world: Our cars are green and our engineers are the best. In September that fell apart when the automaker admitted it had engineered millions of vehicles to cheat on pollution tests.
Since then, the company — known for its insular culture and a carefully scripted messaging machine — has stumbled repeatedly in explaining itself”.
(Joshi, P. and Hakim, D. (2016) ‘VW’s Public Relations Responses and Flubs’, The New York Times, 26 February. Available at: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/02/26/business/volkswage n-public-relations-flubs.html (Accessed: 8 January 2018)
Drawing on relevant theories from the module,
(1) evaluate Volkswagen’s marketing communications following their emissions scandal,
(2) investigate the tactics that have been used by certain consumers / activist groups against Volkswagen as a response to the scandal, and
(3) make suggestions regarding how Volkswagen should respond to these tactics in the future.
For this assignment you are required to do desk/internet research. Rather than being given a case study to work from, you are thus asked to build your own case study using news articles from the internet. Please note that your sources must be reputable news outlets and that they must be referenced in full in the text and in your bibliography at the end of the essay alongside your academic references. In case you do not know how to reference these sources properly, please go to citethemrightonline.com.
As far as academic theories are concerned, as part of your answer you are required to draw on:
– The Stakeholder Identification and Salience model developed by Mitchell, Agle and Wood (1997) to analyse which stakeholders were affected and how Volkswagen communicated with them.
– Concepts from the consumer resistance discourse to analyse the response of activists.
– Concepts from the relationship marketing discourse to evaluate Volkswagen’s communications and to make appropriate suggestions.
Aspects of these theories, concepts and frameworks that are relevant to your analysis of Volkswagen’s communications need to be defined and explained before being applied to the case.
Answer preview
Marketing communication is crucial for the operations of a company regarding the sale of products to consumers (Shimp, 2010). It is therefore vital for a company to adopt a worth communication strategy when relaying specific information about products. In that regard, this essay marketing communication used by Volkswagen Motors Company will be given an in-depth exploration. Volkswagen managers had earlier on communicated to the world how exceptional their vehicles and the kind of expertise the company engages (highly skilled engineers). It was vital information that added spice to an already existing reputable brand name.
Word count: 2417