AMEC confirms that measurement isn’t a quick fix
June 13th, 2011 by Lloyd Gofton
Measurement in PR is a long-ranging, and quite frankly frustrating debate that has been raging for many years, certainly as long as I can remember, but it has gathered more urgency over the last few years.
So what is the issue? Fundamentally, the issue has been how do we prove the value of PR to our clients? The many additional problems range from the scope of media that PR’s remit now covers and especially the ongoing evolution of Social Media, which has fundamentally changed the approach to how PR is developed and measured.
The one thing that everyone agrees on is AVEs are pointless, but i’m pretty sure that has been the opinion for at least the last 13 years that I’ve been in this industry, so it’s fair to say it’s taken some time to get to an alternative.
In recent years, the spotlight has turned to the AMEC European Summit on Measurement for a response, which had its third annual meeting in Lisbon last week.
In fairness, AMEC, or The International Association for Measurement and Evaluation of Communication, which is the global trade body and professional institute for agencies and practitioners who provide media evaluation and communication research, has also taken it’s time to move the measurement discussion on, only agreeing on an agenda to answer in its second year (last year), which was given the title of the ‘Barcelona Principles’, but this year it seems there has been much more in the way of movement.
To be honest, I wasn’t expecting much from the outcomes of the event, but I was fairly surprised when I saw that there actually did seem to be some progress. And not just progress, but a flexible approach to measurement that I for one support.
So, before we get to the measurement, I guess we should cover the background elements, or what AMEC has referred to as top priorities for the PR measurement industry, voted for by AMEC European Summit delegates and prior research.
These were selected out of a list of 10:
• “Measurement of PR campaigns and programs needs to become an intrinsic part of the PR toolkit”
• “Create and adopt global standards for social media measurement”
• “Institute a client education program such that clients insist on measurement of outputs, outcomes and business results from PR programs”
The research study also identified ‘benefits of measuring PR’ as the most important need over the next five years, ahead of ‘impact of PR program on business goals’, ‘measurement beyond media clips’, and ‘social media measurement’.
You can get a full overview on the finer detail at The Holmes Report
Onto the recommendations, which can be reviewed in the Slideshare ppt below (thanks to Arun Sudhaman)
In a nutshell, AMEC seems to have grasped that PR has gone way beyond the realm of a single measurement, or even group of measurements, to reflect the diverse tactics and outcomes that result from a communications campaign. If we also consider the convergence of PR with disciplines such as social, digital marketing, traditional advertising and other functions, the picture becomes even more clouded. Add that to a wider range of objectives from our clients, and trying to jam a square metric into a round campaign simply doesn’t work.
So, it was fairly refreshing to see AMEC suggest a group of what it calls ‘valid metrics’. These were defined through the stages of marketing against PR activity, intermediary effect, and target audience effect, with case studies as examples.
There has already been some feedback that this is not a benchmark measurement that agencies can implement wholesale, and that’s the problem. I don’t mean that it is a problem that there isn’t a framework of measurements, but that agencies are still looking for the ‘missing link’ or the ‘holy grail’ of measurement, which simply doesn’t exist.
If you’re still looking for one measurement to replace AVEs, understand that AVE was never a valid measurement and therefore replacing it with another invalid measurement is irrelevant.
Our campaigns should be as diverse as our clients and the strategic approaches we recommend executed via a range of tactics. If these elements are unique to the client, how can we measure the same metrics for each?
I will certainly be reviewing the recommendations in more detail and looking to support our own measurements with any new learnings. However, the point of this post is not to support the recommendations specifically, but to applaud to notion that measurement isn’t a quick fix, isn’t a one-size fits all, just as campaigns are not the same and clients have different objectives.
At Liberate Media we’ve been measuring campaigns using metrics specific to each client for many years. We agree these with the client at kick off and try to integrate internal measurements and shared analytics to encourage client involvement as much as possible.
This means our reporting is different for all of our clients, and yes, that does mean we don’t have standard reporting across our campaigns, but who did standard reporting help anyway? Was it developed to answer the diverse nature of our clients? Or was it more about assisting internal systems within our agencies?
It’s fairly obvious that measurements built on an internal time saving methodology will not work. So, by giving measurement the attention it deserves we can finally move this conversation forward and begin to build towards the ultimate convergence of communications services that is probably the next big question the PR industry knows is coming, but is so far unwilling to address.
Tags: AMEC, AVE, PR measurement
