The PR evaluation methodology puzzle

I had an interesting chat with someone who I consider to be a top PR practitioner in London earlier today. Like PR people the world over, his (top 20 by revenue) PR firm have identified measurement as an area they need to invest in. The guy I spoke to has been given the brief to investigate this area on behalf of his agency and potentially come up with an agency model that they could offer to clients. This is was all in the interests of attempting to find a competitive advantage that they can offer to clients. On hearing the words “agency evaluation model” and “competitive advantage” my heart sank. Why, you may ask? Surely both of those things are positive developments? Well, yes obviously, it’s great news that measurement has been identified as a priority for PR but my concerns are four-fold: 1. A universal portfolio of measurement methods In my opinion what PR needs is a universal portfolio of measurement methods that, when used as a PR measurement toolkit, enable PR people the world over, and within different sectors, to measure the impact of what they do. It may well be the case that any PR campaign is measured by three or four different measurement metrics, this would simply depend in the objective, or multiple objectives of the campaign. If all PR firms/in house teams have different measurement methods, confusion will reign and comparison, be it year on year, or between geographies, or between sectors, will prove very difficult. This whole effect is exaggerated if the “measurement models” are black-box measurement models. 2. PR people should try AMEC’s measurement framework, at least in the first instance AMEC have done a lot of the hard work for PR people, both in house and agency side. Their measurement metrics framework document is an excellent PR measurement toolkit and in my opinion, for lets say for 85 per cent of the world’s companies, can significantly move their PR evaluation forward by using this document. 3. Bespoke measurement systems If you represent an international brand with operations in multiple countries and your PR spend is sufficiently big, then yes, it may be that you decide to build a bespoke PR measurement model for your business. It seems to me, that in most cases this should be designed by an in-house brand, rather than an agency, simply because the in-house team are more likely to have that deeper understanding of their company requirements. And for any in-house teams looking into this area, again I’d point them in the directions of AMEC’s measurement framework document, at least in the first instance. The best model I have seen for a brand communications measurement is Microsoft’s PRIME system. Jim Desler, Director of World Wide PR, Microsoft talks about it in this video. 4. Social media measurement Social media measurement has become an expensive minefield. Radian6 appears to be the default product of choice for most medium and large sized PR firms and for tmany in-house depts. But don’t forget, as with all computerised systems, it is in effect a piece of software and that means that it will miss stuff. However, the feedback I have received from most agency PROs is that it and systems like it are a cost effective, but imperfect early warning system. But what they are not is an integrated all-encompassing way to measure the value of your PR effort. They are a useful tool, but not in isolation a robust method to measure the impact of your PR If you want a more detailed, integrated communications solution, there are a number of companies our there. In the UK market the ones I know best are Kantar Media, Precise, Echo and Metrica. All of these guys know what they are talking about and frankly, in most cases, they are the evaluation exports, not the PR agencies. (Just a quick nod to Ketchum’s David Rockland at this point, who if your read this article, bucks my trend, and clearly is an agency-side PR evaluation expert). I’m off to AMECs European summit in Dublin on 13 to 15 June so if you are interested in this whole evaluation area, be sure to get your ticket (I’m not on commission) and I’ll see you there.