Corporate Web Positioning as a Strategic Communication Tool in Agriculture

Abstract

Strategic communication is essential to corporations in all industries, including agriculture. In this paper, the idea of corporate web positioning is developed using the example of agricultural corporations (agroholdings) in Russia. This idea reflects companies’ self-understanding communicated online to its customers, partners, competitors, broad public, and state. In our study, webpages of 50 Russian agroholdings were examined to judge their web positioning. The principal approach was qualitative identification of the common themes, which was followed by the analysis of the frequency of these themes. The content analysis of the webpages allowed identification of five general themes of corporate web positioning, namely customer satisfaction, national leadership, the company itself, business focus, and innovative technologies, and three supplementary themes such as natural/ecological products, healthy products, and own products (full-cycle production). It was established that customer satisfaction and national leadership are the most common general themes (two-thirds of all considered corporations). Our other finding was that the supplementary themes were registered for a third of the analyzed corporations. All themes matched the urgent aspects of the modern agriculture. Further interpretations show that the Russian peculiarities of the corporate web positioning in agriculture can be explained within the national socio-economical context. It is recommended that top managers of agroholdings should realize the already existing diversity of web positioning and try to explore new themes for effective strategic communication.