Kraft Foods: Krafting the Deal for Cadbury

Author
Hsia, S.
Region
North America
Topic
Strategy & General Management
Length
12 pages
Keywords
corporate communication
mulit-billion dollar deals
investor
merger
shareholders
Copyright Holder
Notre Dame
Student Price
$4.00
Target Audience
Graduate Students
Undergraduate Students

During a tumultuous time that began at the end of 2009, Perry Yateman of Kraft Foods led her corporate communication team through two multi-billion dollar deals, including the hostile takeover attempt of the iconic British brand Cadbury. The complexities of managing two cross- cultural deals, while Jim Cramer places your CEO on his “Wall of Shame” and the world’s best- known investor, Warren Buffett, releases personal statements against a possible merger, could water down your message and take focus away from the main audience, the shareholders.

Learning Outcomes
  1. To give students the opportunity to apply a strategic framework to corporate communications, in a foreign context, with a multi-national brand.
  2. To identify the power institutional shareholder and illustrate how, why, and when a corporation is vulnerable to the actions of its largest shareholders.
  3. To illustrate the importance of public perception across multiple cultures.
  4. To identify preventive actions to avoid a corporate communications crisis.
  5. To promote the impact of globalization and how international markets make effective, relevant, and proactive corporate communications strategy extremely relevant.
  6. To illustrate how local problems quickly take on global significance if handled poorly.
  7. To show how cultural context and norms make optimal strategies for crisis communication management different in the United Kingdom versus the United States.