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Content Strategy for Royal Canin Canada’s Website Redesign Submitted by Leslie Hetherington
1. Overview: Royal Canin Canada is focused on using innovative research to put its customers’, breeders’ and shelters’ dogs’ and cats’ health and wellness first. It achieves this mission by producing innovative dog and cat food that meets the nutritional needs of their specific size, breed, life stage or condition. Royal Canin products have been sold in Canada since 1967. The company aims to stay top-‐of-‐mind among Canadian customers (pet owners, as well as breeders, vets and shelters) by enhancing audience engagement at multiple touch-‐points, beginning with its Canadian website. Specifically, this website is targeted at the following audiences in Canada:
• Dog/cat owners who currently feed their pet Royal Canin products (purchased from pet specialty stores or their vet)
• Dog/cat owners who care about their pet’s nutrition and well-‐being but don’t currently feed them Royal Canin products
• Veterinarians who are Royal Canin dealers and sell Veterinary Care Nutrition or Veterinary Therapeutic Formulas to their patients’ owners.
• Breeders who use Royal Canin’s PRO products/services or may in the future • Pet shelter owners/staff who use Royal Canin PRO products/services
or may in the future To assess the website’s current status and identify opportunities for improvement, qualitative customer interviews, a comprehensive website audit and competitive analysis have been completed. This research identified practical static and multimedia content that is beneficial to pet owners and its other audience segments. Specifically, some of the site’s strengths include its: dog and cat care articles; some nutrition articles (in the Nutrition Corner section); comprehensive overviews on each of Royal Canin’s products; and an online store locator. Other sections, such as breed information, ingredient glossary and nutrient pages include some valuable information about pet care, but this value is not sustained throughout these sections. Research also uncovered content focus, message positioning, navigational and other challenges that prevent the site from delivering optimum value to its audiences and the company itself. This report identifies core issues with the site and their potential impact to Royal Canin’s business and profile in the Canadian market. It also proposes recommendations for resolving these issues and realizing multiple benefits.
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2. Summary of Core Website Content Issues: 2.1 Site is focused more on profiling Royal Canin than serving its audiences – Although some sections of the website provide practical content for pet owners and others, the overall focus of the site seems skewed to information about the company and its achievements. This organization-‐centric focus is reflected in the site’s:
• Content • Message positioning • Voice and vocabulary
For example, content on the page below profiles the company’s head office in France and its internal business processes. It’s ideal content for an employee document but without any reference telling Canadian customers ‘how this affects them,’ it doesn’t advance the site’s goal to increase customer engagement.
Other examples of this organization-‐centric approach are in Nutrition Corner, an aptly named menu, given Royal Canin’s theme and value proposition. It’s likely a customer would go here to learn how to ensure their pet has a nutritious diet, as well as see how Royal Canin’s products support this need. Unfortunately, they might be disappointed. In contrast, the About Elite Breeders’ Club page below was developed to support dog/cat breeders and their affiliated professionals but its message positioning is problematic. Like the previous page, it uses third person, primarily passive sentences. It touts Royal Canin’s successes, using various organization-‐centric phrases such as: “the foundation of our brand” and “…thanks to our constant better understanding,” highlighted in the following screen shot. Even though this text describes how Royal Canin helps breeders, the message is impersonal, indirect and focused on the company’s role, not the customer.
Royal Canin is headquartered in France but what does this mean to Canadian customers?
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In addition to copy highlighting the organization, in the third-‐person voice, much of it is written like a science textbook and not in the customer’s terminology or vocabulary. This is particularly apparent in the ‘Nutrient’ pages like the one below. It contains scientific words, such as ‘anti-‐platelet aggregation’ that will not be familiar to most pet food customers. Implications -‐ As this website is a key channel for Royal Canin to strengthen Canadian customers’ loyalty by meeting their needs, it needs to do just that. Content that highlights ‘what’ the company is doing without explaining its benefit to the customer, defeats the site’s purpose. More importantly, an organization-‐centric approach alienates external audiences and gives them minimal reason to stay on the site or return. Once customers or prospects give up on the site, Royal Canin loses the opportunity to engage them online. More importantly, the company can no longer use this channel to introduce them to a new food, when they acquire a new pet or their current pet’s needs change. 2.2. Site has chunks of irrelevant content and misses opportunities to reinforce Royal Canin’s theme/value proposition – Although Royal Canin is committed to producing innovative dog and cat food that meets the nutritional needs of their specific size, breed, life stage or condition – this message doesn’t resonate throughout the website. This shortfall is due to: irrelevant content that diffuses the message or relevant content that is not effectively profiled or referenced to relevant pages. For example, the home page (below) prominently highlights: cat care, itchy pets and pure bred dogs – none of which are aligned with Royal Canin’s value proposition. The page also includes sub-‐points about nutrition for dogs and nutrition for cats but nothing on this page depicts the brand’s key benefits or differentiators.
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Another example of this is found in the ‘Nutrients’ section of the site, which contains 50 pages detailing each of the nutrients in Royal Canin’s food. Surprisingly, none of these pages state that these nutrients are in the company’s food and few mention how they benefit a dog/cat’s health or wellness, which would demonstrate how Royal Canin fulfills its brand promise. Furthermore, some pages, such as the Curcumin example below, contain ‘nice-‐to-‐know’ but irrelevant details and mention human versus pets’ benefits.
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Implications – When Royal Canin uses its site for irrelevant content or misses the opportunity to reinforce its value proposition, it forfeits the potential to stand out and capture a customer/prospect’s interest. Forcing the reader to weed through irrelevant content to find what they need also uses the limited time a customer/prospect may have to visit the site, while providing zero value to Royal Canin in return. It may also annoy the customer and discourage them from returning. 2.3. Site contains extensive duplication of content and verbose copy – In several cases throughout the site messages are duplicated even though the topic’s angle and page organization is varied. And in at least one case, a section is duplicated but the message is slightly different. For example, the following three pages all address the value of nutrients and contain similar messages:
A major example of this in the site is the existence of both an online glossary of nutrients pets’ need, as well as 50 pages of nutrient descriptions.
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Another example of this repetition but with different messages is the following two Mission pages on the website, located in the ‘Your Pet’s Nutrition’ (main navigation menu) and ‘About Us’ (secondary navigation menu).
Implications -‐ Although repetition has some value, particularly when it aligns with a company’s key messages, it is not advantageous in a website. As Gerry McGovern, an online customer experience expert, stated recently: “The Web is a place where busy people do things. People know what they want when they come to the Web. …. Help them succeed at completing the task they came to do.”1 As such, forcing a user to scan repetitive or verbose copy prevents them from completing a task. This may annoy them, could drive them from the site and will likely discourage them from returning. An annoying user experience like this creates a detrimental impression of the Royal Canin brand. Furthermore, reading duplicate sections with inconsistent messages, such as the two Mission pages, confuses audiences and reduces the brand’s credibility. 2.4. Site has several inaccurate, vague or inconsistent section titles and confusing user paths – The site is organized by user types (dog or cat owner) and product lines. It also includes separate sections for testimonials, news and corporate categories (about us, contact, careers, privacy/legal). However information is not always located under the most intuitive menu name, which makes parts of the site challenging to navigate.
1 Gerry McGovern, New Thinking: Busy People Need Help, Not Interruptions, October 19, 2014.
Which is the real Mission? The one on the left (‘A precise balance between nutrients’) or the one on the right (‘A precise nutritional answer’ with 5 embedded values)?
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For example, in addition to ‘products’ the PRO Products menu includes information on Royal Canin’s education and loyalty programs for breeders and pet shelters, as shown in the example navigation menu below.
As it’s grouped with ‘products,’ this program information may be difficult to find, particularly if you’re a new breeder or pet shelter employee who is not familiar with the ‘PRO’ product line. Information about Royal Canin’s brand, quality assurance and corporate social responsibility practices is also tough to locate because it’s found in an inconspicuous second navigation menu. This menu is located under grey ‘About Us’ text in the top right corner of the site, which looks like it would like to a single page versus an entire menu.
Finally, there are a number of pages with vague or inaccurate titles, such as the following: • ‘The Science Behind Balance’ – which is about macronutrient profiles for cats • ‘Health Information’ – which outlines the history of Royal Canin • ‘Our Story’ – which is a pictorial graph of the company’s product evolution Implications – These inaccurate, vague or inconsistent section titles and confusing user paths make it confusing, challenging and time-‐consuming for a user to effectively navigate through the site. These navigation challenges can lead the user to a dead end or exhaust their patience. Either way, the user won’t leave the site with a favourable impression of Royal Canin and may not return. 3. Audience Personas and Current User Scenario – Although the website is targeted at breeders, shelter staff and vets, customers comprise its largest audience. Several Royal Canin customers were interviewed and used to develop
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personas for this website. Each persona has different needs and reasons for visiting the company’s website, via varied platforms:
• Jessica, a flight attendant, visits the site via her iPhone and uses it to track the ingredients in Bella, her 8-‐year-‐old Siamese cat’s Intense Hairball dry food and Intense Beauty wet food, learn where she can buy it and find upcoming pet food sales.
• Brian, a stay-‐at-‐home father, logs in from his home computer and uses the site to learn about how to care for his growing mixed breed puppy named Oscar, who eats Poodle Puppy dry food formula, and how wet food compares to dry food.
• Yvonne, a self-‐employed professional, uses her iPad to learn about the best care for her weight-‐challenged, 7-‐year-‐old sheltie sheepdog named Ella. She also uses it to learn where she can buy her Mini Dog Weight Care food, which sometimes requires a special order.
• Sara, a full-‐time, computer savvy corporate employee, has a 10-‐year-‐old Labrador Retriever named Hailey, who eats Gastrointestinal Moderate Calorie Veterinary Therapeutic dry formula, which she purchases from her vet. She has never had a reason to use the Royal Canin site but might if it helped her care for her Lab.
All the personas care about feeding their pet a nutritious and balanced diet. Even though the Royal Canin Canada site does not sell products online, they all, including Sara, think the site is a useful resource, when needed. Scenario Brian’s puppy Oscar is growing older and just turned one year. Brian needs to start feeding him an Adult formula. As a conscientious dog owner, Brian wants to learn about the best new food for ‘Oscar’ and how to best transition him to it. Here is a scenario that depicts how Brian might use the current Royal Canin Canada website to help him achieve these goals. Starting Point: Brian accesses the Royal Canin Canada website (www.royalcanin.ca) and selects the ‘Pet Store Products’ drop-‐down menu.
Phase What Happens? Current Content Recommended Interactive Strategies/Better Content
1 • Brian clicks the ‘Pet Store Exclusive Dog Diets’ link from the right side of the page.
On Pet Store Products Page: • A slider spans top of page
displaying banner ads • There are two hyperlinked,
illustrated boxes in the middle of the page: Pet Store Exclusive Cat Diets on the left and Pet Store Exclusive Dog Diets on the Right
On Pet Store Products Page: • Simpler layout with two
dominant buttons: Cat Diets and Dog Diets
• Pet Store Locator • Button for submitting a
custom order form for a selected store
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Phase What Happens? Current Content Recommended Interactive Strategies/Better Content
• 3 illustrated buttons run along the bottom of the page for: Pet Store Locator, Breeder Link and eNewsletter sign-‐up
2 • Brian is not sure if Oscar is a mini or medium dog, but guesses medium.
• He selects the Medium Dog option to expand the left side menu.
On Dog Diets page: • Left side expandable menu
listing options listing: Breeds, 5 sizes of dogs (from X-‐Small Dog to Giant Dog), Wet, Diet Transition and Guarantee.
On Dog Diets page: • An interactive graphic
shows a silhouette of each dog size, with the weight range listed.
• When the user selects the appropriate size for their dog, an automatic filter will narrow down the selection of food options, based on the size selected.
3 • Brian looks at the list of food options for his ‘adult’ dog. He is not sure what the difference is between Starter Mousse, Medium Starter or Medium Adult.
• He looks at the window on the right and sees the dry and wet food products mixed in and realizes ‘Mousse’ is a wet food.
• Unfortunately none of the foods displayed are the Adult equivalent to the Poodle Puppy food Oscar liked.
• Then he notices the ‘Breed’ option at the top of the menu.
• He clicks the ‘Breed’ button to expand that menu.
On Medium Dog Page: • The left side menu
expands to display a list of dog food options for medium size dogs
• The main window on the right displays rows of labelled thumbnail medium dog food products, with wet and dry foods mixed together.
On Medium Dog Page: • Overview text
summarizes Royal Canin’s dry and wet food options for medium dogs.
• The left side menu lists all the dry and wet foods for medium dogs (including the Breed and wet food lines) with the Medium dry foods on the top, the Breed dry foods for adults in the middle and the wet foods on the bottom.
• All the dry foods for Medium dogs are displayed as labelled thumb nail options in the main window on the right (including the Breed and wet food lines)
• The wet and dry foods for Medium Dogs and the Breed dry foods for
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Phase What Happens? Current Content Recommended Interactive Strategies/Better Content
adult dogs are clearly displayed in separated areas in the main window at right
4 • The Breed button expands and replaces Medium Dog food products page with a Breeds page and changes the left menu to a list of all the Breed products for puppies and adult dogs.
• Brian searches the massive alphabetically sorted list until he finds the Poodle Adult food near the bottom.
• Brian clicks on the Poodle Adult food to select it.
On Breeds page: • The left side menu
expands to display a list of Breed dry food product.
• The main window on the right displays rows of labelled thumbnail images of Breed dog food products, for adults and puppies.
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5 • Brian sees the Poodle Adult food displayed in the right window.
• Brian looks at the window at right and is pleased to learn that the food contains anti-‐aging support nutrients.
• He scrolls to the bottom of the page and clicks the Ingredients and Nutrient Analysis tab in the main window to read more details.
On Poodle Adult Food Page: • Poodle Adult is
highlighted in the left menu.
• A photo of the Poodle Adult page is displayed in the right window, along with text blurbs highlighting its key features.
• There are 2 tabs labelled Feeding Guide and Nutrient Analysis for collapsed boxes at the bottom of the screen
• Optional link to a tip box pop-‐up infographic on ‘how to understand the Guaranteed Analysis section.
• Links from the nutrients cited in the highlight blurbs to the Nutrient pages listed elsewhere in the site.
• Online comparison tool button that enables the user to compare the highlighted food with another Royal Canin product.
• The tool intuitively guides the user to select the food to be compared and displays the ingredients and
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Phase What Happens? Current Content Recommended Interactive Strategies/Better Content
nutrient analysis of each in a comparative table format.
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• The Nutrient Analysis bar expands to reveal ingredient and nutrient details, which Brian reads.
• Brian then clicks the Feeding Guide tab to learn how much he should feed Oscar
On Poodle Adult Food Page: • The Nutrient Analysis
panel is displayed.
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• The Feeding Guide opens and Brain learns that since Oscar weighs 7 lbs. and is an active dog, he should feed him ¾ cup each day.
• Brian wonders how he should transition Oscar to the new food.
• He scrolls to the bottom of the left side menu and selects ‘Diet Transition’
On Poodle Adult Food Page: • The Feeding Guide
panel is displayed.
• Feeding Guide section with online tool for calculating the portion to be fed according to the dog’s weight and activity level.
8 • Brian clicks the new
Diet Transition button
On Diet Transition and Guarantee Page: • Diet Transition and
Guarantee options are displayed
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• Brian reads how to best transition Oscar to the new food
• It’s taken more time than Brian would like but a least he has
Diet Transition page: • Step by step illustrated
diagram explains how to transition to a new food
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Phase What Happens? Current Content Recommended Interactive Strategies/Better Content
some answers. • He closes his browser
to exit the site. This current scenario can be challenging for the user, as there is a lot of scrolling and clicking to find desired options. There is also minimal interactive content to help the user navigate and find answers efficiently. 4. Content Strategy Objectives: The following website re-‐design strategy is proposed to fix the core issues identified and achieve the following objectives – • To make site more customer-‐centric and tailored to give pet owners practical content to
help them maximize their pets’ health and wellbeing.
• To optimize focus on Royal Canin’s theme and more effectively support its value proposition to meet the specific needs of pets’ different breeds, life-‐stages and health conditions.
• To streamline the website to reduce repetition, increase usability and eliminate content that’s not relevant to audience.
• To engage current and prospective customers for longer periods of time on site and encourage them to return.
5. Recommendations for Addressing Core Issues: The following solutions are recommended to address each of the corresponding core issues earlier identified and improve the user experience, as outlined in the example scenario. 5.1 Re-‐focus site to serve audience needs versus profiling Royal Canin – Delete, Revise and Append Content -‐ To shift the site to a customer-‐centric focus, all headings and page content should be thoroughly assessed to ensure they provide content that meets customers and other audience members’ needs. If not, they should be removed from the revised site. Some pages, such as ‘Royal Canin’s Mission,’ are by nature organization-‐focused may still have useful messages for customers, such as how the company’s mission affects the food their pets eat. However, their content needs to be re-‐positioned in a way that makes them relevant to external audiences. For example, a sentence like: “It is characterized by a precise balance between about 50 nutrients,” could be revised to say: “Your dog or cat receives a precise balance of 50 nutrients.”
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Each section and page assessed as useful to the target audiences must be thoroughly edited to ensure it speaks to customers and addresses their needs, in a compelling way. Specifically, content pages should be edited to:
• Use second person with an active voice, where feasible. • Speak directly to customers and reference their pets’ health, wellness and needs • Have a consistent voice that is helpful and informative but not academic, as well as
be conversational but not casual. • Follow plain language principles and use a grade 6 to 8 vocabulary • Ensure consistency of terminology and editorial styles
To help achieve this and ensure consistency, content structures and writing guidelines will be developed and effectively introduced to all members of the organization, who contributed to the website. In addition, the site will be further assessed to pare down text and replace it with visual and interactive tools that help customers achieve their goals. A number of these recommended additions are listed in the example scenario. This will make the site ‘stickier’ and increase online engagement. 5.2. Edit the site to remove irrelevant content and optimize opportunities to reinforce Royal Canin’s theme/value proposition – During the recommendation 2.1, much of the irrelevant content will likely be deleted but it should be diligently assess to ensure that ‘nice-‐to-‐know’ messages, even if they speak to customers, should be deleted. Furthermore deliberate steps should be taken to integrate Royal Canin’s value proposition into the site so that it demonstrates the value of the brand in a helpful but not a boastful manner. Specifically, this includes:
• Prominently positioning messages that reinforce Royal Canin’s value proposition. This includes highlighting them on the home page
• Linking breed information with information about breed-‐specific food • Linking testimonials with the Royal Canin food products they feature • Revising FAQs to lead with questions that amplify the positive benefits the Royal
Canin brand offers. Those that are contentious should be given less prominence and edited to emphasize the positive and sound less defensive.
These fixes will enable the site to more effectively project Royal Canin’s brand and key differentiators. This will build online engagement and may potentially persuade non-‐customers to consider Royal Canin products.
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5.3. Review and pare down the site’s content to remove duplication of content and verbose copy – Extensive editing should be down to consolidate duplicated sections in the site and edit content for brevity. Specifically, this includes consolidating the following sections:
• Why Nutrition?, Supporting Health Through Nutrients and Nutrients vs. Ingredients • Glossary and Nutrient pages • The two Mission pages • Sustainability, Sustainable Development, In the Community (About Us menu)
Furthermore, the Nutrient pages and Glossary should be merged into a unified online tool that links each nutrient with the relevant food product. 5.4. Improve navigation by correcting inaccurate, vague or inconsistent section titles and creating clearer user paths – Section titles should be reviewed and updated for accuracy to avoid confusion. Navigation, sections and titles could be reassessed to create clear paths for each audience to locate their relevant menu items within a reasonable period of time. This includes ensuring vet can login their password-‐protected section, without have to access their food area and shelter staff can easily locate the pages pertaining to PRO products and services that meet their needs. Furthermore, components from the second navigation menu (About Us) should be strategically integrated into the main navigation so they are not missed. To further help audiences visiting the site, a site map can be developed and added to the site. 6. Conclusion With these recommendations implemented and fixes made to the site, it will offer a more useful experience to users. In doing so, it will increase their time on the site, engagement and potential brand loyalty. A more useful site may also attract new customers and enhance Royal Canin’s reputation in the Canadian marketplace.
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This redesign will set Royal Canin on a course to achieve the following objectives through its site: • Optimize focus on Royal Canin’s theme and effectively support its value proposition to
meet the specific needs of pets’ different breeds, life-‐stages and health conditions.
• Engage current and prospective customers for longer time periods on site and encourage return visits.
• Reinforce customer loyalty by giving pet owners practical content to help them maximize their pets’ health and wellbeing.
• Educate customers about Royal Canin’s solutions to their pet’s breed, life stage or health conditions and help them transition to new food, as needs arise.
