Marks and Spencer: Website and Social Media Channel Critique Report

This report provides a comprehensive critique of Marks and Spencer's digital marketing efforts, evaluating both their website and social media channels. The analysis employs the Webqual framework to assess the website's design, layout, navigation, branding consistency, and overall user experience, offering recommendations for improvement. The social media critique utilizes the Customer Experience (CX) framework, examining the consistency and appropriateness of messaging, branding, and channel integration. The report assesses how well Marks and Spencer engages with its audience across various social media platforms. The report further provides recommendations for enhancing the brand's online presence and overall customer experience. The report concludes with an overview of Marks and Spencer's digital marketing strategies and its effectiveness in the retail market.

Critique a business
website and social
media channels

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY..................................................................................................................................3
TASK 1- Critiquing Website of Marks and Spencer.......................................................................3
A) Page Layout and Design...................................................................................................4
B) Site Navigation..................................................................................................................5
C) Consistency of Branding...................................................................................................6
D) Recommendations on How the Website of Marks and Spencer can be Improved...........6
TASK 2- Critiquing Social Media Channels...................................................................................7
A) Consistency and Appropriateness of Message..................................................................8
B) Consistency of Branding...................................................................................................8
C) Integration of Channels.....................................................................................................9
D) Appropriateness of Channel for Particular Audience.......................................................9
E) Recommendations...........................................................................................................10
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................11
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................12

INTRODUCTION
The strategic business process through which a business organisation advertises and
promotes the goods, products and services it manufactures to the public, in an effort to generate
the public’s interest in the business organisation and the goods and services manufactured by
them is known as marketing (Sun and et.al., 2017). This report evaluates the digital marketing
operations of Marks and Spencer, which is a large business organisation that was founded in
1884 and operates in the global retail industry. Marks and Spencer currently conducts all of its
operations from its major headquarter in London England. As Marks and Spencer has been
operating in a highly successful manner within the retail sector for over a hundred years now,
Marks and Spencer has been able to effectively grow and expand its business operations to
lucrative international markets, allowing for the business to diversify their functions and
operations to new market segments. In total, Marks and Spencer operates around 1500 distinct
retail establishments across the world.
MAIN BODY
TASK 1- Critiquing Website of Marks and Spencer
The website of Marks and Spencer is critiqued using the Webqual framework, which
places emphasis on 12 different dimensions relating to the informational fit to task, response
time, trust, tailored information, ease of understanding, visual appeal, innovativeness, consistent
image, relative advantage, online completeness, emotional appeal, intuitive operations. The
Webqual framework is able to provide both fine and wide grained measurements for the website
of Marks and Spencer.

Figure 1: Webqual Model
A) Page Layout and Design
The official website of Marks and Spencer (https://www.marksandspencer.com/) is
critiqued to be sufficiently interactive, engaging and interesting for their customers in the retail
industry. The page layout and design of the official website of Marks and Spencer as based on a
simple framework. The pages are laid out in a simple horizontal manner, with various operations
and promotional apparels of Marks and Spencer being showcased to the consumers on the home
page of the website, making them very easy to understand for the customers based on the
Webqual model. When critiquing the design of the website, it is evaluated that the use of white
background is appropriate, as white colour soothes the customers, and allows for them to
automatically focus on the various discounts and products that are offered by Marks and
Spencer, without the customers having to spend time searching for relevant information on the
website, as the white background places all the coloured promotions and offers that Marks and
Spencer provides to the customers as the main focus of the website (Garett and et.al., 2016). The
layout of Marks and Spencer’s website if very functional, promoting the most trending offers and
discounts to the customers on the front page, in order to generate and increase their interest in
financially transacting with the business organisation, while also providing the customers with a

great choice of diverse range of goods and products, all of which provide value to the consumers.
Another great aspect of the layout of Marks and Spencer’s website design is that the search
option is clearly showcased on top of the webpage. This is another great aspect of the website, as
Marks and Spencer sells thousands of varied goods and services to the customers and having the
option to search for specific goods and products right on top of the page is an immensely useful
and productive feature of the website (Rogers and et.al., 2017). This also makes surfing the
website an intuitive operation for the customer and makes the website successful based on the
Webqual model. The website of Marks and Spencer is laid out in such a manner that all
information provided to the customers in a relatively simple manner, with all promotions and
product categories distinctly separated so that the consumer is never confused by the various
different types of goods and services that Marks and Spencer offers through its website.
B) Site Navigation
Navigating the website of Marks and Spencer is an easy, intuitive and relaxing endeavour
for the customers. This is a lot due to the excellent design and layout of the Marks and Spencer’s
website. The website is divided into various separate categories based on the category of
products that Marks and Spencer sells to the consumers such as trending sales and offers,
summer shopping, women products, beauty products, men products, kids products, home
apparels, furniture, food, flowers, wine etc., allowing for the customers to assess the various
different goods and products that Marks and Spencer sells and choosing the good that they are
interested in. As all these categories are placed on top of every webpage of the Marks and
Spencer, navigating the site for customers becomes a very easy and intuitive process, with the
customers not having to waste their time looking for how to navigate to the information that is
relevant to them. Through the search bar option provided by the website of Marks and Spencer,
users can also navigate straight to the product or good that they are interested in, allowing for
seamless navigation to occur for the customers, without them having to waste anytime having to
specifically spend time navigating to the specific product or good that is provided by Marks and
Spencer (Lee, Jeong and Lee, 2017). The individual product categories on top of the Marks and
Spencer’s website also contain numerous subcategories that can be accessed by customers at any
time, through a drop down system, again allowing for the customers and visitors to the Marks
and Spencer’s website to effectively navigate their way to the good or product category that they
are interested in, without having to understand anything about the website itself. Based on the

Webqual model, the navigation of the website is also appropriate as navigating the website is
easy to understand for the customers, intuitive, familiar and visually appealing.
C) Consistency of Branding
Marks and Spencer also consistently showcases its brand image and values to the
customers throughout the website, making the website highly consistent in terms of branding. All
goods and products provided to the customers on the Marks and Spencer’s website provide value
to the customers, as they have come to expect from the Marks and Spencer brand. Further, the
website sells all the major goods and products to the customers, that the Marks and Spencer has
become known for in the retail sector, such as clothing apparels for men, women, kids, food
products, cosmetic goods etc., allowing for the website to further ingrain into the customers just
what the brand of Marks and Spencer is all about within the retail markets (Hsieh and Li, 2020).
This high consistency of the website in terms of the brand of Marks and Spencer is also
showcased with the website providing numerous offers and discounts to the consumers, further
showcasing the brand consistency of Marks and Spencer whose brand values are to provide their
customers with goods and products that can provide them with increased value.
D) Recommendations on How the Website of Marks and Spencer can be Improved
The website of Marks and Spencer can be further improved by following some
recommendations that can make the website increasingly productive and successful on the basis
of the Webqual model. These recommendations are as follows:
 As Marks and Spencer is such a large sized business organisation, with huge customer
base, market share and operational infrastructure, Marks and Spencer should flaunt some
of its past success to the customers on the title page of its website, showcasing to the
customers what their vision, mission or objective for the business organisation is and how
the Marks and Spencer brand has been able to move towards its long term vision in the
past, showcasing to the customers just what an immensely successful business
organisation Marks and Spencer. This would allow for Marks and Spencer to increase
their brand awareness, value and reputation levels amongst the customers and would also
increase the overall trust of customers in the Marks and Spencer’s brand, something that
the Webqual model requires and the current website of Marks and Spencer doesn’t
possess.

 Another recommendation to improve Marks and Spencer’s website is to make less but
wiser use of pictures on the website, as the current website of Marks and Spencer hosts
numerous pictures for all the different promotions, categories and discounts offered by
Marks and Spencer, which can take away from the navigation simplicity of the website,
making the website feel a little cluttered (Chong and Law, 2019). Wiser use of pictures
would allow for Marks and Spencer to attract customers to the most trending or valuable
goods and products of the business, adding to the emotional and visual appeal of the
website as is required by the Webqual model.
TASK 2- Critiquing Social Media Channels
The social media channels of Marks and Spencer are critiqued using the framework of
Customer Experience (CX), which presents a pyramid of what constitutes as a positive and great
experience for the customers. These three components of the CX pyramid are Useful – it
provides value to the customers, Easy- it is intuitive for the customers and Fun- it remains
emotionally engaging for the customer.
Figure 2: Customer Experience Pyramid

A) Consistency and Appropriateness of Message
Marks and Spencer conducts their marketing operations through all the major social
media channels such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram etc., in order to reach as large an audience
as possible. Through these social media channels, Marks and Spencer promotes and advertises
their manufactured goods and services to the customers through marketing content that is highly
consistent and appropriate. Through the various social media channels, Marks and Spencer daily
promotes their manufactured goods and services to the public through marketing message or
content that is highly interesting, engaging and interactive for the customers. It is only because
the marketing message or content of Marks and Spencer’s social media channels is so
interactive, engaging and interesting for their customers that Marks and Spencer is able to make
effective use of the social media channels towards their marketing objectives of generating
consumer interest towards the business organisation and its produced products (Felix,
Rauschnabel and Hinsch, 2017). Daily through several posts, the social media channels of Marks
and Spencer promote and advertise to the customers the new and valuable goods, products,
services, offers and discounts that Marks and Spencer provides to them, through marketing
message that is highly useful, enjoyable and fun for the customers of Marks and Spencer, making
the marketing message provide to the customers a positive experience based on the CX model.
The consistency and appropriateness of the marketing message of Marks and Spencer through
their social media channels is best showcased through a real life example, where in summer, the
social media channels of Marks and Spencer promote and advertise all the summer apparels that
Marks and Spencer sells to the consumers for all men, women and children (Godey and et.al.,
2016). This marketing message is useful for customers as they need summer clothing during
summer season, easy as the customers has no difficulty using the summer apparels of Marks and
Spencer and is also highly fun for the customers, as through the marketing message, they are
shown the high range of diverse summer clothes and apparels that are available to them from
Marks and Spencer.
B) Consistency of Branding
Marks and Spencer also consistently and effectively showcases their brand, its reputation
and values to the customers through all the marketing operations conducted by the business
organisation on its various social media channels. Through the various social media channels,
Marks and Spencer advertises and promotes the goods and products that its brand has come to be

known for in the retail markets, showcasing to the consumers the consistency of the Marks and
Spencer’s brand name and the value and products that they can come to expect from all the
diverse product ranges of Marks and Spencer (Duffett, 2017). The brand name and values of
Marks and Spencer being consistent on all the various social media channels used by the
business also reinfuses the overall brand image and values that that Marks and Spencer possesses
in the retail sector to the customers and further influences the retail shopping behaviour of the
customers to interact with Marks and Spencer for any need, demand or preference that they
might possess of the goods and products they wish to purchase from the retail markets.
C) Integration of Channels
As Marks and Spencer makes use of various different social media channels such as
Facebook, Twitter, Instagram etc., for their advertising and promotion operations, these are also
required to be effectively integrated together in order for the customers of Marks and Spencer to
have a positive and productive experience on the basis of the CX model. These different social
media channels are effectively integrated to all the various marketing operations of Marks and
Spencer, so that the business organisation is able to effectively conduct is marketing operations
through all the different social media channels while also providing to the customers an
increasingly positive experience through the CX model (Chen and Lin, 2019). All the different
social media channels of Marks and Spencer are integrated together to make use of similar
marketing messages for similar products in order to effectively increase the interest of consumers
towards the most popular and trending goods, services, offers and discounts that Marks and
Spencer provides to the customers, while being district enough to appeal to the target audience
for the particular social media channel. This seamless integration allows for the marketing
message across the different social media channels to be different while promoting similar goods
and products to the customers so that an increased number of customers can be made interested
in and attracted towards the goods, services, discounts and offers provided by Marks and
Spencer.
D) Appropriateness of Channel for Particular Audience
As Marks and Spencer makes use of the different social media platforms, with the
intention to conduct its marketing operations of promoting and advertising to the customers
about the goods and products of Marks and Spencer, the marketing content or message of that

Marks and Spencer makes use of on all such social media channels is required to be relevant and
appropriate towards the particular target audience that Marks and Spencer hopes to attract from
the specific social media channel. This is best showcased through real life examples of Marks
and Spencer using different promotional content that is appropriate to the target audience of the
specific social media platforms. As Instagram is mostly filled with young adults and influencers
who sport the latest trending clothes and fashion apparels in order to showcase and promote them
to the public, Marks and Spencer uses Instagram to promote its elite and high end clothing goods
and fashion apparels to the public, as this target audience of Instagram is mostly interested in
such goods and products of Marks and Spencer, making Instagram social media channel highly
appropriate for promoting the high level elite clothing apparels and brand of Marks and Spencer
(Shareef and et.al., 2019). On the other hand, as Facebook is mostly filled with users who belong
to normal families with all members of the family being available on Facebook, Marks and
Spencer uses Facebook to promote and advertise its home accessories, furniture products,
kitchen apparels etc., which are more targeted towards increasing the interest of Facebook’s
particular audience towards the goods and products available at Marks and Spencer. This
emphasis on providing relevant and appropriate marketing message to the particular target
audience for the different social media channels allows for Marks and Spencer to effectively
promote their goods and services to a large section of the public, while also providing to them a
marketing experience that is positive based on the CX model.
E) Recommendations
Marks and Spencer can make use of the following recommendations to improve their
marketing operations through the social media channels and provide to the customers a much
more positive and enjoyable experience on the basis of the CX model. The recommendations are
as follows:
 Social media channels are great way for Marks and Spencer to promote and advertise
their goods and products to the customers, but it also functions as a great way for the
business organisation to engage and interact with their customers. As one of the most
important and significant factor that influences the operations of Marks and Spencer’s
social media channels is the skills and experience possessed by Marks and Spencer’s
customer representative and marketing employees, Marks and Spencer is recommended

to train and develop the skills of all their customer representative and marketing
employees with the intention to allow the employees of Marks and Spencer to
successfully and productively interact and engage with their customers on the various
social media channels. Negative engagements and interactions between Marks and
Spencer and their customers on social media channels have a tendency to go viral for the
wrong reasons, showcasing the business organisation’s brand to the public in a negative
limelight which is bad for all the operations of Marks and Spencer conducted through
their social media channels (Alves, Fernandes and Raposo, 2016). Training and
developing the marketers and customer representatives of Marks and Spencer who
consistently interact and engage with the customers of Marks and Spencer through their
social media channels would allow for Marks and Spencer to provide their customers
with better customer service and also allow for the business to interact and engage with
their customers in a positive manner as is required by the CX pyramid.
CONCLUSION
Through this report, it is concluded that the official website and social media platforms
are key and effective tools through which Marks and Spencer can market its manufactured goods
and services to the public. This report critiques the official website of Marks and Spencer while
placing focus on the page layout, design, site navigation, consistency of brand metrics in order to
assess how successful Marks and Spencer’s website is. The report also critiques the social media
pages of Marks and Spencer while placing emphasis on the consistency and appropriateness of
the marketing content, consistency of branding, integration of channels, appropriateness of
channels for particular customers, in order to analyses the success of Marks and Spencer’s social
media pages. The report also provides further recommendations on how Marks and Spencer can
improve their website and social media platforms.

REFERENCES
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