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Thursday, December 06, 2007

Paddy Dzell rears his head

Every time I open a PR industry magazine, it’s the same damned thing.

People arguing the toss about how important it is to measure PR activity - especially media coverage – properly, in order to best evaluate a campaign, make sure you’re getting value for money, blah, blah, blah.

As my teenage son is wont to exclaim when I state the bleeding obvious…

“Well… dur!”

Trouble is, after more than twenty years working in PR consultancies and also client-side, I’m still reading the same old blather.

PR practitioners still bleating on about how vital it is that PR demonstrate its effectiveness – and business contribution - if it is to be taken seriously by clients at Board level; and others claiming that their particular software tracking system beats the pants off all the others so buy it now.

Sigh.

Okay, okay...measuring media coverage of your preciously crafted press releases is important. At least as one indicator of how hard the agency or consultancy is working.

And of course it’s quality not quantity that counts...size really doesn’t matter darling. “Our system uses quantum mechanics to analyse the positive versus negative nature of any media coverage, and its likely effect on readers’ perceptions and attitudes to your brand”. Yawn, yawn…

But that’s not the point, is it?

I mean, years ago we just use to measure the number of press releases issued, and that was that. Measuring outputs was a sure guide to productivity, if nothing else.

Then we got really sophisticated and realised that we should be measuring not just outputs, but outcomes.

“Of course!” we cried, slapping our foreheads and rushing off to measure column inches, airtime and the like.

“Look – this month, most of our press releases were actually used by the media – and resulted in 45 column centimetres (ooh, metric, there’s European for you) of coverage in our targeted media – which means we achieved a 69% strike rate compared with this time last year. See, darlings, it’s outcomes that you should measure, not just silly old outputs...that’s soooo last century!”

Hmmm.

So your PR consultancy thinks that interviews on air, feature articles in magazines and acres of print and pix are outcomes, does it?

That these things are actually the objectives of your PR campaign?

Well, don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that you shouldn’t be concerned with measuring these things. Just that if that’s ALL you do, you aren’t actually measuring the effectiveness of your campaign at all.

They are still the means to the end, not that end in itself.

Which is ok, if that’s all that concerns you.

However, if clients fool themselves – or, worse, allow smooth talking PR companies to persuade them – into thinking that increasing the level of coverage (or even the quality of that coverage) is the sole objective of their campaigns, then they’re missing the point.

Eye off the ball, creek but no paddle. Plot not so much lost, as totally abandoned.

The objectives of most planned PR campaigns are about providing information to various stakeholders, influencing their attitudes, maybe changing their opinions.

So isn’t it obvious that to judge whether such a campaign has been effective you must measure precisely those things? Benchmark them before the campaign, track any changes after the campaign. Those are the real outcomes we should be measuring.

Oh sure, the other stuff is important – especially if we want to evaluate how hard our agency is working for its crust (and we should).

But if our PR objectives are part of a meaningful communications strategy, then it’s nothing less than laziness, negligence or misguided penny-pinching if we don’t actually measure the results of our activity. The end, not merely the means to that end.

So why don’t we do that?

Chiefly, I guess, because it’s often time consuming, sometimes difficult and always costs money.

(But don’t get me started on how bad so many organisations are at using customer channels they’ve already got – sales forces, customer service staff etc. – to find out what target audiences think about their firms. You don’t have to spend a fortune on original research every five minutes.)

Successful organisations get the best out of their PR budgets when they can see exactly how effective it is. And so can tweak what they’re doing in light of feedback. So, how about we actually engaging with the stakeholders our PR efforts are aimed at in the first place?

Up to you then, matey. Join the conspiracy of mediocrity and just focus on the easy stuff. Or argue the case for doing what you actually should be doing in the first place, and get real, measurable and relevant results from your PR spend that demonstrates its business value beyond question.

Now push off and let me go back to sleep for a bit, will you...?

Posted by Toby Brown on 12/06 at 05:51 PM
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Reversing the Spin

The debate on ‘Blair’s Legacy of Spin’ featured in PR Week has been compounded this week by the publication of Alistair Campbell’s long anticipated diaries. Apart from the fact that these diaries lack the shattering revelations we all hoped for, they do serve one purpose – to perpetuate the media’s guilty love of spin.

The publication of these diaries allows the news media to reignite the popular but trite question of style over substance. When this ongoing battle between government and the fourth estate is examined more closely it is often an entirely pointless pursuit.

The trouble is that falling newspaper and traditional media revenue and readership is driving an increasingly opinionated and sensationalist news media. Of course papers have always had their own political leanings but this is not the problem. Ever more the national media is becoming a ‘rabid beast’, baying for the blood of whichever politician or public official who puts a foot wrong. The daily paper is frequently comparable to a bizarre royal court, calling “Off with his ‘ed!” Every time a mistake is made.

This point is not to usurp the media’s right and core purpose – to hold government to account. Rather it is to highlight its obsession with public execution. When mistakes are made, heads must roll, no question.

However, this ‘feral beast’ as Tony Blair affectionately called it, does not appear to account for a central tenet of human nature – fallibility. Humans are naturally fallible and will inevitably make mistakes. High pressure jobs will obviously separate those who are less fallible than the rest, but even the brightest top officials have their moments.

The central point here is that when cabinet and other political positions can be lost at the slip of the tongue or the mistakes of an underling, it is no wonder that politicians feel the need to protect themselves. By protection I mean from the media which controls what the electorate hear, often what they think and holds the ultimate power over politicians – the power of popularity.

Unfortunately what springs from this is a perpetual cycle of mistrust where the government attempts to appease the media, which is ready to attack on the smallest falter. This is where plotical advisors, ‘spin doctors’, call them what you will, become so important. Managing the media has become the only way for politicians to survive longer than a month without being ousted due to a media attack. And don’t think that Gordon Brown will be any different – his stance of ‘getting down to work’ – is simply another tactic of perception management.

So what’s the solution to this cycle? Well unfortunately it isn’t just going to peter out over time. The ‘spin cycle’ will continue as long as the media’s inflated expectations persist. The only way to tackle this is for politicians to try and convey a more balanced picture of themselves i.e. the rough and the smooth. This recognition of humanity not incompetence, on a small scale will ultimately be accepted by the media and the electorate. The result of this being that the public will not expect cabinet supermen, rather an achievable level of service from MPs. With the spin cycle at least slowed perhaps they can get over their preoccupations with keeping jobs and have more time to run the country.

Posted by Toby Brown on 12/06 at 05:33 PM
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