Website evaluation : Audi

Résumé du document

Audi is a German car manufacturer and a part of the group Volkswagen AG. The official name of the company is Audi AG, and its registered office is located at Ingolstadt in Bavaria. The name Audi is the acronym of Auto Union Deutsche Industrie. This name also comes from Latin audi (imperative mode of audire: to hear), which is linked to the name of the founder, August Horch (1868-1951) (imperative of hören: to hear). Its founder left the Mercedes group after a divergence of opinion. As a result, he founded his company, Auguste Horch & Co, which collapsed very quickly. With daring spirit, August Horch gave birth to Audi, he was legally forbidden to name the company with his own name. Audi was founded in 1909 in Zwickau by August Horch, initially under the name of August Horch Automobil Werke, after he had to leave its company "Horch & Co". Its name is the translation in Latin of “Horch”. The factories as well as the main office were in Zwickau, in Saxony. From 1911 to 1914, the Audi Company took part in the Alps Cup, an amazing endurance race of 2400 km which Audi won three successive years in 1912, 1913 and 1914.

Extraits

[...] So, I would recommend extending this very good tool to every local website as soon as possible. From what we can read on several cars forums (or message boards), many people (both current customers and prospect buyers) are expecting this feature to be available very soon so, Audi shouldn't disappoint them. If Audi makes a few changes and optimize the use of its tools (e.g.: CRM), www.audi.com could represent a both step forward and could generate a strong competitive advantage. [...]

[...] The car models are well presented on a general picture. The site is also shallow and interactive with the use of the “micro-sites” to present Lexus models. Here again, the difference between the local and the global strategy seems to be confused. If we look at www.lexus.com.sg, we will find a website which is not very attractive pictures with lot of text). This site looks incomplete or still under construction, the overall design is too simple, almost poor. The navigation is not clear and links are not explicit. [...]

[...] You can also make a research within a specific section. A sitemap is also available for people who are looking for a specific section or sub-section which does not appear directly in the right navigation menu. This makes the site very complete and the visitor is given several options to reach the page he wants to see. Some broken link have been encountered during the test period with the links to S/RS models micro-sites: the page has moved and the redirection goes to the Audi world site. [...]

[...] As for most car manufacturers, we can find information such as cars characteristics, services description, corporate details and the history of the brand. There are also some pages about brand placement like in movies, sports and cultural events, should they be local or global. The content provided is exhaustive with concise text areas (except for news and articles) including a title for each of them. The text lines do not exceed 100 characters (around 80 characters for most of them). All the previous features allow an easier “diagonal” reading as this is what most people do. [...]

[...] The first one is Audi TV. Audi has launched a web TV offering up original Audi content 24-hours a day, seven-days-a-week. Magazine-type shows, from "behind-the-scenes" looks at vehicle launches to interviews with musicians and other Audi partners, pepper the web waves in both English and German for the enjoyment of Audi-philes across the world. Available at www.audi.com/tv and www.audi.de/tv, programming covers not just the cars themselves, but culture, sport, lifestyle and technology. The effort is spearheaded by a small team at Audi AG in Germany and supported by various marketing, communications, sales, technology and design heads elsewhere throughout the company. [...]