KDPaine's PR Measurement Blog

Measurement needed here

We came across this tidbit in PRWatch :  In response to a $5 million RFP for PR,  the non-profit Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility has asked the agency's Inspector General to investigate the request for proposals. PEER questions the "appropriateness of using funds for image enhancement that would otherwise be available for public health and environmental research", citing current laws that, "prohibit the use of tax dollars for publicity or propaganda purposes." 

Clearly the PR folks at the EPA have a need to demonstrate their value to the folks at PEER. A decade ago we received an RFP from the EPA which was quite brilliant if somewhat of a challenge. They wanted to measure the effectiveness of a PR campaign around recycling motor oil. The measure of success wasn't column inches, or even messages communicated. The measure of success was: Did the campaign change enough people's minds about recycling and thus lessen the amount of oil contamination, thereby reducing the cost of clean up.  They wanted to show that the cost of the campaign was less than the cost of cleaning up the oil that would have been dumped had the campaign not occurred.  We ended up not responding to the RFP, but we've always been curious as to whether they implemented the measurement. Sounds like if they did, PEER never saw it.

Memo to Senate: Stay out of my bedroom, stay out of my business

The New Hampshire state motto is “Live Free or Die” and we’ve always been a bit more independent up here than other states. Not that we’re all libertarians mind you, we just don’t think that the government should play that big a role in our lives.

So it was particularly annoying to read that a group of Republican legislators was pushing a bill that would essentially make media research a regulated industry.  The bill is being pushed by Fox lobbyists. Fox has of course had a tendency to be more favorable to republicans and the republican agenda. So it should come as no surprise that the republicans are returning the favor by pushing this bill.

The bill would require Nielsen ratings to check with an industry group before it made any changes in its technology or methodology. Now granted, Nielsen has had an abnormally strong influence over media since its founding but that’s nothing that a free market can’t fix. And in fact, Nielsen’s influence is already waning. … http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/archive/index.php/t-512266.html

The bigger questions is, what are the long term implications of  a congressionally controlled “industry advisory board” reviewing media research. Will there come a day when if Lockheed or Exxon doesn’t like the research report that we or Cymfony or Biz 360 or Echo or NOP or anyone else provides, will congress come in and investigate our methodology.

Let's get this nonsense stopped now. Contact your local senator and/or the bills sponsors: Montana Senator Conrad Burns, Maine Senator Olympia Snow, Florida Senator Mel Martinez and/or Virginia Senator George Allen. 

Not ANOTHER one!

No, we're NOT talking about Mike Carberry joining Carma. We welcome Mike with open arms, and trust he'll consider our Measurement Summit in September a welcome to the neighborhood party. We're talking about PR Newswire's release of Media Sense -- a joint venture with KWHR. As I've said...just what the industry needs, yet another media measurement tool. I just wish that these people would have donated all the money they spent on developing and launching this product and instead endow a scholarship or two through the Institute for Public Relations to teach people how to use it and find meaning from the data.  While I haven't seen a "MediaSense" report, I have seen the typical KWHR charts and if I find them somewhat baffling, I can't wait to see what PR Newswire's clients think of them. Don't get me wrong, they contain great information, information that every PR person should have at his or her fingertips, but all the data in the world doesn't do you an iota of good if you don't know how to analyze it, interpret it and make recommendations on how to improve.

I also shudder to think how all those thousands of PR newswire clients are going to respond when they get into the nitty gritty of realizing that you don't get 100% coverage from automated anlaysis and you certainly shouldn't expect 100% accuracy. 

I applaud PR Newswire for taking this step, and I'd be happy to send them a bottle of my very special Bloody Mary mix to take when they wake up and realize that measurement isn't nearly as easy as everyone seems to think it is.

Too many rants, not enough time

You know it's bad when there are too many topics to rant on than there are hours in a day. Of course it is summertime here in New Hampshire so we do tend to take advantage of the three days of sunshine we get, (you know that up here we have two seasons -- winter and road construction)...alternatively winter and two months of poor skiing. All of which leave significantly less time for provocative thinking. But since its low tide and I can't hop on a boat at the moment, I'll direct my thoughts to some of the more important crises facing our industry -- like media monitoring getting dragged into the whole realm of republican politics. Since when do reputable media monitoring research firms work for republican hacks to track the politics of various talk show hosts? I'm referring to the disgraceful behavior of Edward Tomlinson, head of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting board in hiring one Fredrick Mann to analyze the content of the Diane Rehm show and Now with Bill Moyers among others to determine whether it did or did not support the policies of the current administration.

The key there is "reputable."  Not only was the whole contract somewhat fishy, awarded to Mann without notifying the board or anyone else but how come it was awarded to someone with no background or experience in media analysis? It may be because there is a federal law that prohibits any government body from keeping  track, in any organized way, of a individuals use of his or her first amendment rights. In other words, the government isn't allowed to keep "hit lists" of journalists, and that is exactly what Mann was asked to create.

Not that anyone in the current administration is likely to listen, but in the future if you need media analysis, hire a professional.