Still No PR Measurement Standard

by lisa ~ August 24, 2009

The best most common means used to measure the value of PR is the ad value equivalency (AVE). The industry knows it’s a flawed tool but a more reliable one - and one that isn’t phenomenally expensive - has been hard to come by.

AVE is calculated by measuring either column inches (in the case of print media) or seconds of air time (in the case of broadcast media) and calculating the respective medium’s advertising value based on the number of inches or seconds of coverage received. The number obtained is the amount it would have cost to place an advertisement of that size or buy air time of that length. For a discussion of the many problems with AVE, check out this white paper by the Institute for Public Relations.

There are many reliable PR measurement vendors in the industry, including Burelles Luce and Gorkana, with which I’ve worked in the past. Procter & Gamble (P&G) built its own PR measurement tool several years ago. Companies with smaller budgets make do with internal scorecards that manually code each article by labeling it positive, negative, or neutral.

Research magazine features an interview today with Mark Westaby of U.K. media analysis firm Spectrum Consulting. He proposes using the free Google Trends and Insight tools. That’s an excellent suggestion from a man whose company that could stand to lose money if his idea catches on. His proposal will work well if your client is Apple and you want to gauge public opinion of the new iPhone. Unfortunately, this doesn’t work well for B2B businesses that are largely covered by subscription-based trade publications.

In my opinion, the best homegrown way to capture the PR department’s value is to track everything - every media interview (even the backgrounders), every piece of coverage, and every clip (and the tone, whether positive, negative, or neutral). I also recommend giving each piece of coverage a grade - A for a cover story or a substantial feature, and D for a casual mention in a news brief, perhaps. And yes, AVE can play a role as long as it’s not the only metric used.

Sadly, until an industry standard is developed, the problem that PRWeek recently mentioned still remains: “Many in our business continue to promote results as their ability to secure media coverage rather than the impact this messaging has on consumer attitudes and behaviors in the marketplace.”

Lisa Tibbitts (Lisa.Tibbitts@Me.com) is a corporate communications professional with an MBA in marketing. Follow her on Twitter: http://twitter.com/FinancialPR.