A kiss goodbye to ROI
Max Markson, who recently signed the Vancouver kissing couple as clients ahead of their return to Australia, appears to take a fairly unscientific view of how PR is measured.
In an article in The Wall Street Journal, the publicist was quoted as saying that the $10.5m in publicity he said the kiss photo was worth was a number that he “pulled out of thin air” because the journalist he was talking to was on deadline.
Which is only slightly less scientific than what appears to be his remuneration policy. According to the piece, Markson multiplies news coverage by five when working out ROI. “It’s an indicator, it’s not something they will live or die on,” he said.
Which is just as well.
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Max Markson
Max needs to get with the times – the PRIA does not endorse a dollar value (AVEs) on media coverage – there is no scentific (or other) basis for it. Editorial and news stories offer a different value to clients and cannot be quantified in the same manner as advertising which holds a dollar value on spend.
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Whatever happened to column inches?
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Multipliers are unethical. Plus there no research/science to back the number by which the AVE is multiplied. I suspect that PR agencies that use multipliers want to inflate the value of their campaigns.
Much better to evaluate the outcomes of the campaign be it sales, change in sentiment/opinion, change in consumer behaviour, key messages communicated or even cost per opportunity to see.
PR has historically struggled to prove its value. It’s sad to see the use of multipiiers and ‘spurious’ evaluation tar the industry.
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Column inches are not a good form of evaluation as they do not take into account the content of the article. Its definately not a good results to secure a huge article about how the client is terrible! Plus PR is just about media relations. That’s a smaller part of the overall job.
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While i fully endorse the PRIA opposing the dollar value – why don’t they promote some of the more realistic forms of measurement and the value and results of ethical PR. That’s why clients are so confused about how to measure and the PRIA certainly has the opportunity to balance the story. I would suggest Max is perfectly happy with ‘his times’ and fees and probably isn’t a member anyway.
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Allison, you definitely need to work on your spelling, though not necessarily your analysis.
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I agree with Anonymous. There is a need for ‘best practice’ measurement methods to be put forward so our industry can present a united front and educate clients.
Its all very well for some of us to strive to produce meaningful measurements and evaluation but then have to compete with agencies trumpeting grossly amplified circulation/readership numbers – which undoubtedly grab CEO and executives’ attention.
I think the PRIA should take a lead on this but whether they are interested and have the smarts is another questions.
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But I thought all news was good news?
(irony anyone?)
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Dear Anonymous, the PRIA does actively promote the more realistic forms of measurement and regular holds workshops to this effect to include a range of measurement options such as awareness, behavioural change, actions and outcomes. The workshops are scheduled on a fairly regular basis so for anyone interested please visit http://www.pria.com.au
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i am guessing that this discussion is only relevant to product publicity?
and even then i question whether it matters because the ‘investment’ in PR in any consumer campaign is a poofteenth of ad spend so PR ROI is really a moot point
the bigger issue is that most agencies can’t quantify ROI for multi-million ad spends, which is of far greater concern to senior management and boards, in my experience
personally i’ve never been asked by client or employer to put a dollar value on PR because third party endorsement is always assumed to be worth far more than just advertising noise that it’s assumed most people ignore
and as Peter Longini wrote in PR Daily on the WSJ article:
“One of the most persistent difficulties with measuring the ROI of PR is attaching a credible value to things that DON’T happen, which is also a central goal of corporate PR. They include things like class action lawsuits that don’t congeal (sic), shareholder revolts that get defused, product returns that don’t happen, labor problems that don’t materialize, and snarky analyst comments that never get heard”.
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This would be a great opportunity and medium for the PRIA to promote its ‘meaurement options’ and educate for the greater good. Why not use the media to promote PR?
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Workshops are great but what we need is an industry standard or a guide or something everyone can use and reference as best practice. Then we need to build awareness and educate off the back of this. The PRIA does what it can but honestly, we need to get off our own bums and contribute to the solution, not just leave it up to the PRIA to fix it when they might not be in the best position to do so.
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As already commented by Cecelia Haddad, the PRIA does not support the use of AVE’s in measuring PR. It is worth noting that the PRIA is not alone, with all the major PR industry bodies, including the Global Alliance of PR and Communication Management, the International Association for the Measurement and Evaluation of Communication, the Public Relations Society of America and the Chartered Institute of Public Relations also discounting AVE’s.
So what’s the alternative? The public relations industry, by its own admission, has been slow to adopt standard measurement techniques, something that advertising, direct mail and other marketing and communications disciplines have been using to their advantage for years, however we do need to acknowledge that PR is an extremely varied communication discipline. There is unlikely ever to be a “universal” measure of PR. PR programs include publicity, events, web sites, publications, internal comms, lobbying, stakeholder relations etc. As Sven mentioned attaching a credible value to things that DON’T happen is also challenging.
Different PR programs obviously also have different objectives. No one method can measure multiple different types of activities with different audiences and different objectives. There is a well-established range of research methods such as content analysis, surveys, interviewing, case study analysis, etc. that can be applied.
Just a few weeks ago the global PR community met at Lisbon Summit to chart a course for the future of public relations research, measurement and evaluation. At this gathering the Measurement Agenda 2020 was created. The agenda is a series of action steps to build upon the Barcelona Principles of Measurement (http://www.pria.com.au/blog/id/908) adopted last year – the first global standard of PR measurement. PRIA, through our membership and active involvement in the Global Alliance and the International Communications Consultancy Organisation will be engaging in the implementation of the agenda – and in the short term will be running some seminars (as well as continuing to run our training workshops) on PR measurement.
Developing global standards for social media measurement, further education of the PR profession, and new work on the ROI of public relations emerged as the top priorities by delegates at the Lisbon Summit.
Measurement and evaluation techniques that are widely understood, accepted and implemented are critical to the acceptance and growth of public relations and the PRIA will be doing its part in the coming years to work with the global PR community to chart its future course.
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Do really think Max gives a rat’s rear end about any of the foregoing?
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Dan I suspect you are right, but I’d hope that Max would care a just a little about sending the PR industry backwards, which comments like his do; and just when amplification was starting to become a more and more dominant force, with smart operators even snagging ATL budgets…
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