I saw this article in The Times at the end of December revealing that advertising in print is twice as effective as TV. It got me thinking about the relevance of this to PR. According to the article, for every £1 spent on print advertising, £5 in revenue is returned.

I’d be interested to find out how this was calculated: this kind of information is invaluable to PRs when evaluating the effectiveness of their efforts.

Here at Metrica we’ve found that more and more clients are looking at ways to show the wider marketing disciplines the effect of PR on sales. We’ve been able to provide data which has then been run alongside other marketing outputs, directly proving the ratio of influencers on sales, giving a hugely valuable ROI.

Taking this report at face value, it looks as though PRs should focus all their attention on print (a strange conclusion given the decline of print sales) to improve PR’s effect on sales.

Joel Dawson, head of online marketing at Boots says in The Times article that “Print is very good for targeting specific audiences and getting eyeballs on key products”.

However, PR efforts on TV appear in the programme the vieweris watching rather than the ad breaks, which the viewer can increasingly turn off or ignore using their PVRs (Sky Plus / Tivo for example). This, many would argue, is why TV advertising is becoming less and less effective.

So perhaps taking the conclusions in this report and trying to match them with PR is inadvisable. I would argue that an individualistic approach – each campaign directed to the appropriate audience for that campaign– is the way forward. And, while you’re at it, feed your output into marketing modeling to prove the effectiveness of your work. 

A recent PR Week piece entitled, "Recruitment consultants find digital skills in short supply within PR industry," has highlighted again the percieved disconnect between traditional PR and the digital skills needed to operate in the 'new' social world. 

The clients we work with in social media absolutely buck this supposed trend so it seems that it is just taking a while to filter through the whole industry.  The piece is good feedback, however, on the areas that are lacking. 

Metrica will be at the Social Media World Forum talking about these very things.  Be great to see some of you there. 

I was delighted to see that the COI has recently announced the results of its initiative to standardise PR evaluation metrics.

Metrica worked closely with the COI on the plans and has long endorsed moving away from simple quantitative measures towards analysing the role that PR plays in a wider context.  For that reason it was pleasing to see four elements in particular…

Firstly, establishing the programme without the recommendation of Advertising Value Equivalence should be seen as a giant step forward. The COI report describes AVE as a flawed metric and states that it will not be including AVE in the core set of mandatory metrics.

In putting his hands up to occasionally having used AVE, Adrian Cadwallader, Deputy Head of Marketing at the Department for Children, Schools and Families highlights that he was troubled by the appropriateness of using one marketing technique to evaluate another and embraces the new cost per impact (CPI) metric.

As a way of showing comparative value across communications disciplines this is a measure Metrica has been providing to clients for a long time.

It was also pleasing that Adrian pointed out the need to tailor the metrics according to the campaign. This supports the conclusion that the COI has drawn by not creating a proprietary “scoring system” or magic bullet approach. For as long as I’ve worked in the industry the goal of having one “score” to measure the effectiveness of PR has been discussed and the debate rages on. I don’t think “scores” will ever be the answer. I wont get into that now but we’ve blogged about it a few times – here for example.

Neil Martinson, Director News and PR at COI points out that establishing a consistent approach to the way metrics are calculated will make it easier to compare results across other marketing disciplines. The endorsement of cross discipline measurement was perhaps the most heartening conclusion of all. Feeding into holistic evaluation programmes and econometric models will ultimately raise the bar for everyone. 

Metrica has a history of integrating it’s analysis into econometric models; as  Carolan Davidge, of Cancer Research UK points out when discussing the work Metrica did for the Race for Life campaign, it’s perfect for demonstrating outcomes and for supporting those who feel their PR budget is under threat.

Finally it was great to see that the analysis will focus on Reach to audience. Far too often we see competitors clients come to us frustrated by generic media evaluation that pays no heed to the one element that should be central to all campaigns – the audience. There’s no point pitching me your latest beefburger – I’m veggie – and all the messaging in the world won’t make me buy it. Understanding how well you are communicating with those that matter is central so hats off to the COI for documenting that too.

If you are looking at your evaluation programme and think the standardised metrics that the COI has rolled out might be right for you feel free to get in touch – we’re always happy to help.

In the mean time, I’m off for some Tofu and lentils… yum!

It’s that time of the year that we all look forward to.  Snow is falling and festivities flowing as we prepare to say goodbye to 2009.  It’s been quite a year.  Not least remembered for a heavy downward pressure on budgets; in turn fanning the flames of the eternal debate about how much should be spent on PR measurement.

Back in 1998, the CIPR, PRCA, Public Relations Standards Forum (PRSF) and AMEC put their heads together and produced best practice guidelines on the use of planning, research and evaluation within the industry.  The aim of the campaign, known as PR Week’s Proof campaign, was to encourage companies to allocate 10% of PR budget to measurement.  Over ten years on and, although the 10% figure is often cited, the reality is rather different.  Metrica Insights found that over half (52%) of respondents spend between 1-5% on measurement.  The respondents do, however, believe they should be spending more on evaluation: almost half the participants currently spending between 1-5% recognise that they should be spending between 6-10%.

So, herein lies the conundrum. When budgets are being squished and results are under close scrutiny does it pay to hold fast and continue dedicating 10% to measurement?  Here at Metrica (heavily vested interest aside!) we would argue that the answer is yes.  As long as it’s done properly.  There’s little point spending swathes of money on measurement if it doesn’t demonstrate PR’s contribution to the success of the business.  Counting clips and presenting AVEs won’t make the money spent worthwhile; generating ROI metrics that help prove and improve the effectiveness of PR will.  If you can use your measurement for well-informed planning, tweaking and improving then the budget really starts to sing hard for its supper. 

Interestingly, while more respondents’ 2009 PR budgets decreased (30%) than increased (20%), the majority (46%) stayed the same.  This was a very encouraging result during a global recession.  The widening remit of PR in the social media realm may well have had something to do with this.  Even more reassurance came as 28% of respondents were confident of an increase in overall PR budgets coming into 2010.  Is this result a reality?  Have your budgets been decided yet? And, most importantly, have you put aside a set amount for measurement? 

Next time we’re looking at opinions around ROI – the catch of the day, the phrase du jour, the Holy Grail. At long last there’s been increased demand for PR ROI.  How are our respondents satisfying this demand?  We’ll be back in the New Year to find out. Happy Christmas everyone!

In between screaming at the X factor final this weekend (hangs head in shame), I saw a TV advert for The Sun Newspaper. It takes a lot these days for an advert to grab my attention, but this one was particularly cunning. My personal favourite ‘app’ is the pen-touch interface for the games section.

The basic premise is that a ‘handheld’ printed newspaper is just as good as an online version.  Those clever folks at The Sun use a parody of the iPhone app adverts to make their point. It does beg the question though that if the UK’s best selling daily newspaper is having to persuade the public to pick up a copy instead of heading online, what does that say about the state of the industry? Or are they trying to pre-empt the threat of digital media? A bit like closing the stable door after Mr Ned / Black Beauty / horse of choice has bolted.  It is certainly an interesting tactic.